Reinventing the Millennium

iPhone4S is already very good.

As of early August, in just over a month, the global sales of iPhone 4S exceeded 10 million units, which is destined to break the sales record of Apple's mobile phone series.

On a year-on-year basis, this is also the highest-selling flagship figure among Yusanjia.

However, Yike is an internal shunt, creating different price ranges in today's increasingly homogeneous mobile phones in the Android camp. With an extra ten days, the combined global shipments of the two product lines totaled 12.6 million units.

Although Samsung has not announced that its Trump flagship has exceeded 10 million units, it should not be far away.

The continuous shipment performance of Yusanjia has made other manufacturers this year complain. Several manufacturers that have already released have to release discounts, and some have postponed the release of new phones in order to avoid this wave of sharpness.

But is the iPhone 4S the best phone Steve Jobs could ever launch?

The best is always the next one.

However, according to his current physical condition, he can no longer polish the next one.

"The design of iPhone5 should be out now." Fang Zhuo responded after sitting down.

"It's very rough," Jobs said briefly. "Cook and the others should continue to do a good job."

Fang Zhuo took out his phone and pretended to record on the screen: "I want to write that Steve Jobs is very dissatisfied with his successor Cook."

Jobs did not refuse such a joke. He pointed at Walter, another person present, and said with a smile: "He will describe it objectively."

Walter is a well-known biographer who has written biographies of Franklin, Kissinger, Einstein and other celebrities. He has known Jobs for many years and started working on Jobs' biography 16 months ago.

Today, he believes that it is very likely that he witnessed the last meeting between Apple's founder and an important competitor.

Google took the lead in launching the Android system, and Yike created the flagship product of the Android camp. They have been competing fiercely with Apple since four years ago.

And, together with Apple, it is impacting the market of traditional mobile phone manufacturers.

Four years ago, Nokia's Symbian also had the label of "smartphone".

Nowadays, Symbian seems to be very far away in everyone's impression and belongs to the non-smartphone camp.

The decline of Nokia, the sell-out of Motorola, the defeat of Sony Ericsson mobile phones... these are all tears under the impact of the wave of smartphone development, and Apple, Yike, and Google are undoubtedly at the forefront of this impact.

Walter thought about the profound changes that have affected the global mobile phone market in recent years, and he became excited just looking at these three people: Jobs, Schmidt, and Fang Zhuo.

He twice declined to be Steve Jobs's biographer, but changed his mind two years after the smartphone was released, a sea change for mobile.

However, the simple exchange between these three people without even greetings suddenly came to an abrupt end.

Fang Zhuo sipped his coffee, Schmidt looked at Jobs, and Jobs lowered his head slightly.

After a long time, Schmidt, who was sitting between the heads of the two companies, broke the silence and said with a smile: "I really didn't expect smartphones to develop to this point."

The skinny Jobs glanced at Schmidt and simply said: "That's normal for you."

Schmidt said helplessly: "You..."

"Mr. Schmidt is one of the best CEOs in the past ten years in my opinion. His judgment on the prospects of ecology and technology is among the best in the world." Fang Zhuo said solemnly, "You see, he is no longer in charge of Google. CEO, but still investing in cutting-edge projects such as artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley.”

Jobs still strives for simplicity: "Gates is better than him in this aspect."

Fang Zhuo couldn't help laughing: "If you compare it with Gates, is this a compliment?"

Jobs asked, "What do you think?"

Fang Zhuo looked at Schmidt, his expression was bitter, and he obviously didn't think it was a compliment.

Biographer Walter recorded this scene silently.

"I think Gates is a pretty nice person." Fang Zhuo said with a smile.

Jobs had an indescribable look on his face and asked, "Why?"

"Because Microsoft and Yike have reconciled." Fang Zhuo smiled and mentioned the previous patent incident.

"Then Apple and Yike have also reconciled. What do you think of me?" Jobs said.

Fang Zhuo muttered: "You're not bad either."

"Do you think baseband research can produce results?" Jobs was noncommittal, but suddenly changed the topic and mentioned the second technical cooperation between Apple, Yike, and Samsung.

"It's a little difficult, but you can try." Fang Zhuo said without hesitation, "Anyway, we at Yike will continue to invest."

Jobs nodded, with a hint of slyness in his seriousness: "I want to control key technologies, right? Cook and I have discussed this. It is precisely because of your more urgent needs in this regard that we are willing to join in. See if there are any additional results.”

Because Yike, a brand that came out of China, has the urgency of technology research and development, it is more determined to do this. If it is dominated by Samsung, it will have more room for choice, and it may not be able to persevere if it encounters setbacks.

Fang Zhuo was a little surprised to hear such a reason, then he smiled and said, "Oh, this is the subjective initiative I like."

Jobs said a series of words, regained his strength, and only nodded this time. The company Yike has developed to this day and has a different trait like Fang Zhuo, an Oriental, with subjective initiative and extremely enterprising spirit. Regardless, they are all a major factor in this cooperation.

"You guys, are you here just to talk about work?" Schmidt interjected.

Jobs turned his head and asked, "What should we talk about? Do you need me to provide you with some philosophy of life?"

The biographer Walter’s eyes lit up, this was a pretty good picture.

However, both Fang Zhuo and Schmidt shook their heads slightly. They did not need another person to tell them some philosophy of life or life mottos.

Walter was a little disappointed.

Jobs was not surprised. Although he returned home, he was indeed concerned about the situation of Apple. However, after just talking about iPhone 4S and baseband cooperation, some of his thoughts suddenly became boring.

The rest of the iPhone series can only be handed over to Cook.

"If you have any ideas about product technology, you can talk about it. If Cook can't do it, maybe we at Yike can do it and help you beat Apple hard." Fang Zhuo made a joke.

Jobs was really amused by this.

He took a sip of water and talked about the impossible future. He didn't know where to start and then quickly got to the point: "I saw the work done by Ronan in the NEC laboratory, and I thought I would have the opportunity to chat with him. chat."

"Did you see his Natural Language Processing (Almost) from Scratch?" Fang Zhuo asked with a smile. This is a simple deep learning framework for natural language processing NLP this year.

Just as Jobs was about to speak, he suddenly heard Schmidt's questioning voice.

"Natural Language Processing (Almost) from Scratch?"

Fang Zhuo and Jobs looked at Schmidt in surprise.

The biographer, Walter, didn't quite understand what happened and asked: "Huh?"

"No, Schmidt, I just told Steve Jobs that you are engaged in research and investment in cutting-edge projects such as artificial intelligence. Ronan's paper..." Fang Zhuo frowned, "Even I have seen the report. You... are hard to judge."

Of the three people present, only Schmidt was the most relevant, and he should also know the cutting-edge situation in the industry.

Schmidt was a little embarrassed and coughed: "Really? I'll go back and take a look."

Seeing Walter's thoughtfulness, he quickly said: "No need to remember this."

Walter didn’t say anything, already roughly understanding the situation.

"Look, I would say that Gates is better than him in this aspect." Jobs spread his hands and said with some surprise, "But you pay a lot of attention to this aspect, so it's not bad."

"This is one of the frontiers that Yike is paying attention to, but the investment has just begun. It is not as good as Google and Microsoft. I don't know if Apple has invested in this area." Fang Zhuo told the truth.

He once proposed future prospects and directions at the Yike annual meeting, but implementation requires investment and process.

Both Google and Microsoft have already made some moves, including Schmidt, who is also helping the Pentagon in this regard. Last year's deep learning project received funding from the defense department's DARPA program for the first time, with participants including New York University, Stanford and NEC. .

Earlier, in 2006, University of Toronto professor Jeffrey and his students published a paper involving a multi-layer artificial neural network model in Science, triggering a wave of research and application of deep learning.

Therefore, Schmidt’s current unfamiliarity with NEC’s new research on NLP is somewhat surprising.

"The investment is not big." Jobs briefly gave the real information.

"This is a very interesting field." Fang Zhuo said his feelings.

Jobs showed a smile. I won’t say whether it was successful or not, but it was indeed interesting.

He thought for a while and expressed his opinion: "This aspect probably requires time and data accumulation, large parameters, markers, NLP and neural network algorithms. These technologies will definitely revolutionize new things, but I don't know how long it will take. "

"Will Cook do this?" Fang Zhuo asked.

Jobs replied: "Then you have to ask him."

Fang Zhuo couldn't give an answer to this question. He took a sip of coffee and commented: "Cook is still very capable."

"At least it won't mess Apple up," Jobs said.

Schmidt turned to Walter and said, "You must write this down. This is Jobs' highest expectation for Cook."

Fang Zhuo laughed.

Schmidt said, "I'm very curious about what Cook can do with Apple."

Jobs no longer fantasizes about this matter. Although he is still concerned about the company's situation, more of the future can only be left to the future.

"Mr. Fang made a list of the top ten most successful CEOs in the world in the past ten years on Twitter. Today we are here to congratulate you on your successful selection." Schmidt joked, "I want to ask you about your acceptance speech."

"Then you must send me a trophy." Jobs didn't read Twitter and didn't know about it, but he accepted this statement and asked curiously, "Where are the other nine?"

Schmidt pointed to himself: "There is a me and there is a Bezos."

Jobs immediately said to Fang Zhuo: "I don't want the trophy."

Schmidt stood up and pretended to leave: "If you talk nonsense like this, Walter will write it down. I'm leaving."

"We will award a trophy to each candidate, and each person's words will be engraved on the trophy." Fang Zhuo said with a smile, "Jobs, yours will be engraved with 'I don't want the trophy.'"

Jobs gave a thumbs up.

Schmidt sat down again and tipped his thumb down.

He said: "Jobs, this is not fair. We are here to visit you. Do you only have objections to me? Google competes with Apple, but our cooperation is also good. You should cherish the opportunity and criticize well." After all, it’s not easy for him to go abroad once.”

After hearing this, Jobs felt that there was indeed some truth to it, so he expressed his feelings directly: "I have always felt that Mr. Fang has a shortcoming."

Schmidt and Walter were both refreshed, while Fang Zhuo listened quietly.

"Not focused enough." Jobs said, "If you focus on Yike, I believe the current Mars phone will be better."

Schmidt quickly raised his hand and emphasized: "Walter, you must remember this sentence."

"I also want to focus on, if Nokia is willing to license patents with Yike from the beginning, if LG does not ban the sale of Yike in South Korea, if..." Fang Zhuo shrugged, "There are many ifs, it can probably be regarded as a driver. "

He thought for two seconds and gave an evaluation he had previously discussed: "Different positions and conditions have different feelings. It's like I've always felt that you made Apple too closed."

Jobs was not angry, but said: "You have made Android so open and promoted the progress of many manufacturers around the world. It is indeed an outstanding job. Sometimes, I think, I can make Apple more open. Then What would it be like?”

Fang Zhuo commented: "It will probably be another kind of beauty."

Walter noticed that the two looked at each other and smiled at this time.

"Android is the job I am most proud of at Google. You two, you two..." Schmidt sat up slightly, "I can hear your comments about me."

Walter saw the expression on Schmidt's face, as if "it's my turn, it's my turn."

"Bezos told me to stick to long-termism." Fang Zhuo said to himself. "Schmitt told me on the way here that you should never set limits on yourself. What about you?"

Jobs asked nonchalantly: "Are you sure you are not talking about epitaphs?"

"Probably not." Fang Zhuo replied, "I will put myself first, and I will also think of something for myself."

Jobs had to add a word of criticism: "Subjective initiative is sometimes not a good thing."

Schmidt followed up: "I very much agree."

Fang Zhuo shrugged, isn't this wrong?

He picked up the coffee cup and waited for Jobs's words at this moment.

Jobs took a sip of water and rested while thinking.

But he seemed to be deep in thought and didn't speak for a long time.

The living room was quiet, but the appearance of his wife Laurenna broke the silence.

"Steve, it's time for you to rest. It's been a long time." She reminded her husband that this was the longest visit in recent days.

Fang Zhuo and Schmidt both looked apologetic.

"I thought about it." Jobs put down the cup and said his "acceptance speech." "Don't ask Steve what he would have done."

Fangzhuo and Schmidt both laughed.

They stood up to say goodbye, ending what was perhaps their last visit to the Apple founder.

Lorena took her husband's place to see off the guests and expressed her gratitude: "Steve looks very happy today."

"Maybe it's because he saw Schmidt using an iPhone 4S." Fang Zhuo laughed.

Laurenna waved goodbye.

"I never thought Steve Jobs was such a humorous person before." Fang Zhuo sighed after sitting in the car.

"He has a very stubborn temper." Schmidt shook his head, "Now we don't need that stubbornness to face work anymore."

Fang Zhuo recalled today's visit and said: "It's good. I didn't hear him sigh from the beginning to the end. I want to make up for what he said on Twitter."

Schmidt said "Yeah", and when he saw Mr. Fang put down his phone, he said seriously: "Apple is going to lose Steve Jobs. This is a good opportunity for us."

Fang Zhuo turned his head and glanced at Schmidt, who was still the chairman of Google: "You are really disappointing."

"I'm just stating a fact." Schmidt was calm and even a little indifferent, "Can Cook take over Apple? Mr. Fang, you should use the subjective initiative that even Steve Jobs appreciated. We want to attack Apple's market. "

"You can talk about this when you can't see his house in the rearview mirror." Fang Zhuo frowned.

"More tender?" Schmidt showed a knowing smile.

Before Fang Zhuo finished speaking, he received a message from biographer Walter on his phone. He looked at the screen and said: "Walter asked me to talk about his views on Steve Jobs when I have time."

Schmidt offered no advice.

Fang Zhuo declined Walter.

The atmosphere in the car became quiet.

"What do you think about the idea of ​​inviting failed CEOs on YouTube and let's talk about the factors that lead to failure?" Schmidt changed the topic and suddenly reflected on himself, "It's not warm enough, is it?"

Fang Zhuo glanced at Schmidt: "Why did your character become worse after you became the CEO of Google?"

Schmidt replied helplessly: "Maybe I asked more about your story? I heard that you did a good job in China. Yike has a new software business? Forcibly acquired a semiconductor design company?"

"If they are willing to come." Fang Zhuo agreed.

Schmidt curled his lips: "Yike is interested in artificial intelligence, are you working on it?"

"We are starting to build a team. There are good talents here in Silicon Valley." Fang Zhuo gave an honest answer.

Schmidt thought thoughtfully and felt that his work did have shortcomings, so he made a small suggestion: "Perhaps, there is room for us to cooperate."

"Is it Google or you?" Fang Zhuo confirmed.

"If it were me, the Pentagon would probably go crazy." Schmidt laughed. "I'm talking as the chairman of Google."

"There are always risks in communicating with people with different identities like you." Fang Zhuo said, "How can you properly reassure me about your identity?"

"As long as the benefits are big enough, you can rest assured." Schmidt said matter-of-factly, "There has not been much substantial progress in research in this area, and everyone needs to work together."

Fang Zhuo nodded and suddenly received news from the company that the negotiations with Siri Company had made new progress.

He simply shared the news.

Schmidt didn't quite understand and asked: "Is this company important?"

"Generally, it's just an ordinary business move by Yike." Fang Zhuo put down his phone, "It's just that we talked for a long time. I don't know what Cook would think."

Schmidt heard this and seemed to be competing with Apple.

He replied: "At least you won't ask Steve what to do about such a small thing."