我妻子请求今天搭乘飞机时能带上我的iPad，为的是飞行途中我们的女儿能有点儿事干。我在苹果iPad 2发布会现场给她发短信说：“我想你刚刚得到了一台iPad。”其实我可以表达得更简练些：“归你了。我会去买台新的。”

    到现在，苹果（Apple）iPad2发布会已经被人们通过Twitter以及网络日志实况转播、评论了无数次。越来越多的苹果迷正翘首以盼，等着到3月11日购买（或者已经开始预订）更薄、更轻、更酷的iPad2。以下是由这一事实引发的几点深入思考。

    *史蒂夫•乔布斯还活着，而且显而易见，数月来他一直很健康。也许他看起来比去年10月时略瘦了一点儿，而且有时说话声音会发颤。尽管他于1月份宣布请第三次病假，但是，如果有谁认为此后不会在公开场合看到他的身影，那这些人就大错特错了。

    *你可以从乔布斯反复提及的次数，看出某些措辞在他心中的分量。他一再用到的措辞就是“后个人计算机世界”。尽管眼下我仍在一台带键盘的PC上撰写此文，但判断苹果前进的方向可谓轻而易举。看看苹果的首席执行官如何用该公司专门为iPad开发的GarageBand，转瞬间将手中的iPad2变成了一架钢琴，就足以证明上述观点。我们也不难发现，iPad正一步一步地实现Mac计算机的一切功能。

    *苹果很重视竞争对手。乔布斯不断地抨击三星（Samsung）和摩托罗拉（Motorola）以及谷歌（Google）等公司，有时指名道姓，有时含沙射影。毫无疑问，苹果在平板电脑领域拥有优势，而且将对手甩得很远。但是，苹果仍然小心翼翼，这点也肯定无疑。它依然像不起眼的小公司一样思考，即便它早就不再是家小公司。

    *苹果电视（Apple TV）也在慢慢摆脱早先的归类，不再仅仅是 “业余爱好”而已。用苹果电视将iPad2连到电视机上，简直易如反掌。由于iPad受到普遍欢迎，多家厂商（数字视频播放器企业Roku和谷歌就是其中两家）正在竞相角逐的外围应用比以往任何时候都更可能成为现实。

    译者：大海

    My wife pleaded to take my iPad with her on a flight today, the better to occupy our daughter while airborne. I texted her from Apple's event to announce the iPad 2: "I think you just got yourself an iPad." I might more succinctly messaged: "Keep it. I'm getting a new one."

    By now the Apple event has been tweeted, live-blogged and commented upon ad nauseum. So here are a few higher-level takeaways, behind the fact that the growing legion Mac fanatics will be waiting to buy (or already are pre-ordering) their thinner, lighter, cooler iPad 2s on March 11.

    * Steve Jobs is alive and apparently as well as he has been for months. He looked perhaps a little thinner than in October, and his voice faltered at times. But for all the people who thought they wouldn't see Jobs in public again after his announcement in January of a third medical leave, they were wrong.

    * You can tell the tropes Jobs thinks are important by how often he repeats them. "Post-PC world" was that trope today. Though I'm writing this post on a PC with a keyboard, it's easy to see where Apple is leading. Just seeing how an Apple executive turned his iPad 2 into a piano using Apple's GarageBand for the iPad proved the point. You can see how little by little the iPad is doing everything a Mac can do.

    * Apple takes the competition seriously. He repeatedly slammed Samsung and Motorola and Google, sometimes by name, sometimes by obvious inference. There's no doubt Apple is out front on tablets. Way out front. There's also no question Apple is paying attention. It still thinks like an underdog. Even if it isnt' anymore.

    * Apple TV is inching away from the hobby category. Apple unveiled a super easy way to connect an iPad 2 to a TV using Apple TV. With the ubiquity of iPads, this fringe application that numerous players are chasing (Roku and Google to name two), is ever closer to becoming a reality.