It was a smart call. To make the Apple II successful required more than just Wozniak’s awesome circuit design. It would need to be packaged into a fully integrated consumer product, and that was Jobs’s role.

這是個(gè)明智的決定。要想讓AppleII取得成功，需要的不僅僅是沃茲尼亞克杰出的電路設(shè)計(jì)能力。AppleII需要成為一臺(tái)完整的全功能消費(fèi)產(chǎn)品，這就需要喬布斯施展拳腳了。

He began by asking their erstwhile partner Ron Wayne to design a case. “I assumed they had no money, so I did one that didn’t require any tooling and could be fabricated in a standard metal shop,” he said. His design called for a Plexiglas cover attached by metal straps and a rolltop door that slid down over the keyboard.

他第一步便是請(qǐng)以前的合伙人羅恩·韋恩設(shè)計(jì)一個(gè)箱子。“我想他們沒什么錢，于是我就做了一款不需要使用工具加工的箱子，普通的五金商店就能制造出來。”他說。他的設(shè)計(jì)結(jié)果出來了：一個(gè)有機(jī)玻璃制成的殼子，附帶有金屬條以及一扇可以蓋住鍵盤的卷門。

Jobs didn’t like it. He wanted a simple and elegant design, which he hoped would set Apple apart from the other machines, with their clunky gray metal cases. While haunting the appliance aisles at Macy’s, he was struck by the Cuisinart food processors and decided that he wanted a sleek case made of light molded plastic. At a Homebrew meeting, he offered a local consultant, Jerry Manock, $1,500 to produce such a design. Manock, dubious about Jobs’s appearance, asked for the money up front. Jobs refused, but Manock took the job anyway. Within weeks he had produced a simple foam-molded plastic case that was uncluttered and exuded friendliness. Jobs was thrilled.

喬布斯并不喜歡這個(gè)箱子。他想要的是筒單又精致的設(shè)計(jì)，可以讓蘋果電腦從那些配有笨重的灰色金屬箱的電腦中脫穎而出。有一次他在梅西百貨的家用電器通道閑逛時(shí)，廚藝公司（Cuisinart）的食品加工機(jī)觸發(fā)了他的靈感，他決定要一個(gè)光滑的機(jī)箱，由輕便的模制塑料制成。在一次家釀?dòng)?jì)算機(jī)俱樂部的會(huì)議上，他出價(jià)1500美元，請(qǐng)一名當(dāng)?shù)氐募夹g(shù)顧問杰里·馬諾克（JerryManock）將這個(gè)設(shè)計(jì)制造出來。喬布斯的著裝形象讓馬諾克有些半信半疑，他要求喬布斯預(yù)支報(bào)酬。喬布斯拒絕了，但馬諾克還是接受了這份工作。幾個(gè)星期后，他就做出了一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的發(fā)泡成型的塑料箱，整齊簡(jiǎn)潔，看上去很友好。喬布斯十分激動(dòng)。

Next came the power supply. Digital geeks like Wozniak paid little attention to something so analog and mundane, but Jobs decided it was a key component. In particular he wanted—as he would his entire career—to provide power in a way that avoided the need for a fan. Fans inside computers were not Zen-like; they distracted. He dropped by Atari to consult with Alcorn, who knew old-fashioned electrical engineering. “Al turned me on to this brilliant guy named Rod Holt, who was a chain-smoking Marxist who had been through many marriages and was an expert on everything,” Jobs recalled. Like Manock and others meeting Jobs for the first time, Holt took a look at him and was skeptical. “I’m expensive,” Holt said. Jobs sensed he was worth it and said that cost was no problem. “He just conned me into working,” said Holt, who ended up joining Apple full-time.

接下來是電源的問題。像沃茲尼亞克這樣的數(shù)字極客是不大會(huì)關(guān)注電源這種不起眼的部分的，但喬布斯認(rèn)為這是一個(gè)關(guān)鍵部件。具體地說，他想要的——也是他整個(gè)職業(yè)生涯一直追求的——是在不使用風(fēng)扇的情況下供電。計(jì)算機(jī)內(nèi)部的風(fēng)扇有悖于禪意，它們的噪音會(huì)讓人無法集中精神。喬布斯去雅達(dá)利公司咨詢奧爾康，他了解老式的電氣工程。“奧爾康把一個(gè)叫羅德·霍爾特（RodHolt）的聰明家伙介紹給我，這是個(gè)煙不離手的馬克思主義者，結(jié)過多次婚，精通所有事物。”喬布斯回憶。和馬諾克以及其他第一次見到喬布斯的人一樣，霍爾特打量了他一番，滿腹狐疑。“我收費(fèi)很髙的。”霍爾特說。喬布斯感覺到此人一定物有所值，于是說錢不是問題。“他就這么說服我為他工作了。”霍爾特說，他后來加入蘋果公司，成為了一名全職員工。

Instead of a conventional linear power supply, Holt built one like those used in oscilloscopes. It switched the power on and off not sixty times per second, but thousands of times; this allowed it to store the power for far less time, and thus throw off less heat. “That switching power supply was as revolutionary as the Apple II logic board was,” Jobs later said. “Rod doesn’t get a lot of credit for this in the history books, but he should. Every computer now uses switching power supplies, and they all rip off Rod’s design.” For all of Wozniak’s brilliance, this was not something he could have done. “I only knew vaguely what a switching power supply was,” Woz admitted.

霍爾特并沒有使用傳統(tǒng)的線性電源，而是制造了一個(gè)與示波器等儀器上使用的相類似的開關(guān)電源。這就意味著，在一秒鐘之內(nèi)，通斷電的次數(shù)不是60次，而是上千次，這樣電源存儲(chǔ)電能的時(shí)間就大大減少，散熱量也隨之減少。“那個(gè)開關(guān)電源和AppleII電腦上的邏輯電路板一樣，都是革命性的發(fā)明，”喬布斯后來說，“羅德并沒有因此得到太多的贊譽(yù)，但他應(yīng)該名垂青史。現(xiàn)在所有的電腦都使用開關(guān)電源，而這都是盜用了羅德的設(shè)計(jì)。”盡管沃茲尼亞克天賦異稟，電源設(shè)計(jì)卻非他能力所及。“我只大概知道開關(guān)電源是個(gè)什么東西。”他說。

Jobs’s father had once taught him that a drive for perfection meant caring about the craftsmanship even of the parts unseen. Jobs applied that to the layout of the circuit board inside the Apple II. He rejected the initial design because the lines were not straight enough.

喬布斯的父親曾經(jīng)教導(dǎo)過他，追求完美意味著：即便是別人看不到的地方，對(duì)其工藝也必須盡心盡力。喬布斯將這一理念應(yīng)用到了AppleII的內(nèi)部電路板布局上。他否決了最初的設(shè)計(jì)，理由是其中的線路不夠直。

This passion for perfection led him to indulge his instinct to control. Most hackers and hobbyists liked to customize, modify, and jack various things into their computers. To Jobs, this was a threat to a seamless end-to-end user experience. Wozniak, a hacker at heart, disagreed. He wanted to include eight slots on the Apple II for users to insert whatever smaller circuit boards and peripherals they might want. Jobs insisted there be only two, for a printer and a modem. “Usually I’m really easy to get along with, but this time I told him, ‘If that’s what you want, go get yourself another computer,’” Wozniak recalled. “I knew that people like me would eventually come up with things to add to any computer.” Wozniak won the argument that time, but he could sense his power waning. “I was in a position to do that then. I wouldn’t always be.”

這種完美主義的激情也讓喬布斯更加放縱自己的控制欲。大多數(shù)的黑客和業(yè)余愛好者都喜歡定制和改裝自己的電腦，往上面插上各種部件。對(duì)喬布斯來說，這會(huì)威脅到無縫的用戶體驗(yàn)。骨子里還是一名黑客的沃茲尼亞克并不同意。他想要AppleII帶上8個(gè)擴(kuò)展槽，可以讓用戶隨心所欲地插上小型電路板或者外接設(shè)備。喬布斯堅(jiān)持只能有兩個(gè)擴(kuò)展槽，一個(gè)給打印機(jī)，另一個(gè)給調(diào)制解調(diào)器。“通常我是個(gè)很好說話的人，但這一次我告訴他：你要是只想要兩個(gè)擴(kuò)展槽的話，就自己去做一臺(tái)吧。’”沃茲回憶道，“我知道，像我這樣的人最終總是會(huì)想出點(diǎn)兒東西來加到電腦上的。”這場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)執(zhí)以沃茲的勝利告終，但他能感覺到自己的影響力正在減弱。“當(dāng)時(shí)我還能有那樣的話語杈，但我不會(huì)一直都有。”