首先要交代一下，由于《困境中的帝国：后乔布斯时代的苹果》(Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs)一书的缘故，尤加利•伊瓦塔尼•凯恩已经接受了200多次采访，我仅仅是其中之一。这本新书讲述了在后乔布斯时代，由蒂姆•库克执掌的苹果公司(Apple)究竟发生了哪些变化。这本书上周二一面市马上遭遇了大量的负面评价。

    早在去年夏天，我就知道了她的故事梗概，但我一直信守保持沉默的承诺。凯恩在7月份告诉说，她在启动这个为期两年的写作计划时认为，如果只有一家公司能够在失去有远见的领导者之后继续生存下去，那就是苹果公司。但写完这本书后，她得出一个结论：这家公司最辉煌的岁月已经过去了。一去不复返。她说，就算乔布斯死而复生，他也不能带领苹果公司重现昔日荣耀，更遑论他亲自挑选的接班人蒂姆•库克。

    我很好奇。我对凯恩的了解源自她在《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)旧金山分社工作期间对苹果公司持续3年的追踪报道，其中不乏一些令人印象深刻的独家新闻，其中最著名的当属那篇头版新闻（与乔安•卢布林合作），曝光史蒂夫•乔布斯曾在2009年春天做过一次秘密的肝脏移植手术。这是一位知道如何追踪线索链，从一个故事的外围直达核心的记者。如果她掌握了一些关于后乔布斯时代的苹果公司的干货，我很想一睹为快。

    我已经读完了这本书。非常抱歉，我觉得它不够好。

    《困境中的帝国》的前三分之一主要讲述乔布斯最后三年的生活，写得还不错。但正如《卫报》(the Guardian)的查尔斯•亚瑟所指出的那样，这本书的后三分之二充斥着一种几乎带有毒性的偏见。凯恩用一种精巧的写作手法，把她看到和听到的一切都转化为彰显苹果公司难逃失败宿命的证据。

    最终，凯恩的这种态度破坏了她作为一位记者的信誉。书中穿插的结论让人觉得她还没有列举、分析事实，就先入为主地下了定论。

    “衰落不可避免，”她在后记中写道，并采用神话体描绘了一番苹果公司的兴衰史：

    这个故事遵循着一个在历史和神话中常见的模式。一个陷于困境、濒临解体的帝国召回了一位在外流亡的创始人，把他封为救世主。这位犹如奥德修斯般无情和狡猾的统治者将忠诚的部下们召集在一起，激励他们大胆冒险，放手一搏。这个帝国很快就迎来了前所未有的辉煌岁月。随后，被一片庆贺声包围的皇帝生病了。皇帝深知他自己是帝国命运的鲜活象征，于是就尝试着掩饰自己的病情，直到他终于被迫接受一个事实：他不是长生不老的神仙。皇帝归天后，以他之名延续帝国事业的副官们坠入了自满和迷茫之中，整个帝国随即乱作一团，动弹不得。这些束缚于昔日运营方式的新任领导人变得不那么灵活，忽略了业已出现的警告信号。皇帝已经永远地离开了他们，但他的魂魄依然无处不在。尽管这些副官仍然在与敌军作战，但他们无法靠自己开辟一条前行的道路。他们累了，对一切都不那么确定。巧夺天工的创意之源已经干涸。

    她说的可能没错。但事实是，我们确实不知道苹果公司未来的命运。由于凯恩耗费两年时间也未能抵达故事的核心，她其实也不知道。

    论述这个主题的著作犹如汗牛充栋，而且数量还在不断增长。那些正在认真研究苹果公司的人们或许希望在这本书中找到凯恩发掘出的新鲜细节。但我建议他们还是先读读近期出版的另外三本著作：

    • 沃尔特•艾萨克森的《乔布斯传》(Steve Jobs)。推荐理由：对于这位深居简出的主人公，作者的接触次数和了解程度是其他人望尘莫及的。

    • 亚当•拉辛斯基的《苹果解密》(Inside Apple)。推荐理由：作者对这家公司内部结构进行了深入分析。

    • 利恩德•卡尼的《乔纳森•艾维》(Jony Ive)。推荐理由：这本书披露了苹果公司创造新产品的流程。(财富中文网)

    译者：叶寒

    Confession: I was one of the more than 200 sources Yukari Iwatani Kane interviewed for Haunted Empire, the new book about Apple's transition from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook that arrived Tuesday to largely negative reviews.

    I've known since last summer -- and agreed to keep silent about -- the arc of her story. Kane told me in July that she went into the two-year project thinking that if any company could survive the loss of its visionary leader, Apple (AAPL) could. But she came out of it concluding that the company's best days were behind it. Far behind. Not even Jobs, she said, could restore Apple to its former greatness. Tim Cook, his handpicked successor, didn't have a chance.

    I was intrigued. I knew Kane's byline from the three years she spent covering Apple from the Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau, where she scored some impressive scoops. Chief among them: The front-page news (reported with Joann Lublin) that Steve Jobs had a secret liver transplant in the spring of 2009. This was a reporter who knew how to follow a chain of sources from the periphery of a story to its center. If she had the goods about Apple in the post-Jobs era, I was eager to see them.

    I've read the book. And I'm sorry to say that it doesn't deliver.

    There is some good reporting in the first third -- the part that covers the last three years of Jobs' life. But as the Guardian's Charles Arthur points out, the last two thirds are infected with an almost toxic bias, a kind of writerly tick that turns everything Kane sees and hears into further evidence that Apple is doomed.

    Ultimately, Kane's attitude undermines her credibility as a reporter. The book is peppered with conclusions that feel like they were reached before the facts were in.

    "A decline was inevitable," she writes in her Epilogue, painting Apple's rise and fall in mythical terms:

    The story follows an archetypal pattern—a pattern familiar in both history and myth. A struggling empire, on the brink of dissolution, recalls one of its founders from exile and casts him as a savior. The ruler, ruthless and cunning as Odysseus, gathers the faithful and emboldens them to take startling risks that allow the empire to reach even greater heights than before. Amid the celebrations, the emperor grows sick. Knowing that he is the living embodiment of his kingdom's fortunes, he tries to hide his illness until he is finally forced to accept that he is not immortal. Left to carry on in his name, the emperor's lieutenants fall prey to complacency and confusion, lapsing into disarray and paralysis. Bound to the way things have always been done, these new leaders become less flexible and ignore the warning signs. Their emperor is gone, but ever present. Though they are still at war with enemy armies, these lieutenants cannot find their own way forward. They are tired. They are uncertain. The well of ingenuity has run dry.

    She may be right. But the fact is we don't actually know. And because Yukari Kane didn't manage after two years of reporting to get to the center of the story, neither does she.

    Serious students of Apple Inc. may want to read this book for the fresh details she adds to the growing literature on the subject. But there are three other recent books they'll want to read first:

    • Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs, for its unparalleled access to the book's reclusive subject.

    • Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple, for what he learned about the company's internal structure.

    • Leander Kahney's Jony Ive, for what it reveals about Apple's processes for creating new products.