The Whiteness of the Whale
白鲸的白

Jony Ive had been playing with the foam model of the iPod and trying to conceive what the finished product should look like

乔尼·艾弗一直在摆弄iPod的泡沫模型，反复设想成品的样子，
when an idea occurred to him on a morning drive from his San Francisco home to Cupertino.
一天早上，在他开车从旧金山的家里到库比蒂诺的路上，一个想法突然跳了出来。
Its face should be pure white, he told his colleague in the car,
他在路上打电话告诉他的同事：iPod的正面要用纯白色外壳，
and it should connect seamlessly to a polished stainless steel back.
然后与背面光滑的不镑钢壳进行无缝连接。
"Most small consumer products have this disposable feel to them," said Ive.
艾弗说："很多小型消费类产品给人的感觉都是‘用后即弃’的。
"There is no cultural gravity to them.
他们缺少文化内涵。
The thing I'm proudest of about the iPod is that there is something about it that makes it feel significant, not disposable."
关于iPod，我最得意的地方就是其中有一些元素为它赋予了意义，让它历久弥新。"
The white would be not just white, but pure white.
白色不是简单的白色，而是"纯净"的白色。
"Not only the device, but the headphones and the wires and even the power block," he recalled. "Pure white."
他回忆道："不只是机身，耳机、连接线，甚至是电源适配器也要是白色的，‘纯净’的白色。"

Others kept arguing that the headphones, of course, should be black, like all headphones.
但其他人都认为耳机当然应该是黑色的，和其他耳机一样。
"But Steve got it immediately, and embraced white," said Ive. "There would be a purity to it."
艾弗说："但是史蒂夫立刻就决定要用白色。这给产品增加了‘纯度’"。
The sinuous flow of the white earbud wires helped make the iPod an icon.
蜿蜒的白色耳塞线使iPod成为了一个标志。
As Ive described it: There was something very significant and nondisposable about it,
艾弗是这样描述的：iPod包含着一些非常有意义且不易被丢弃的元素，
yet there was also something very quiet and very restrained.
但是也有一些非常安静和内敛的部分。
It wasn't wagging its tail in your face. It was restrained, but it was also crazy, with those flowing headphones.
它不会搔首弄姿，它是内敛的，但那平滑的耳机又是个疯狂的创意。
That's why I like white. White isn't just a neutral color.
这就是我喜欢白色的原因。白色并不仅仅是一种中性的色彩。
It is so pure and quiet. Bold and conspicuous and yet so inconspicuous as well.
它既纯净又安静，醒目、出挑但又不张扬。