© Todd Heisler/The New York Times
© Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
© Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times
© Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times
Parallels Desktop 标准版现在只能最多分配 8GB 内存，Pro 版才能 16G 及以上。 这个软件真是爱恨交织啊，把用户按在地上反复摩擦。
© Maxwell Briceno/Reuters
© Amilton Neves/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Bing Guan for The New York Times
Before Apple launched the Macintosh Portable in September 1989, the only way to lug a Mac around was in a hefty case. Although it broke new ground, unless you enjoyed weight-training the Portable’s 7.2 kg mass wasn’t at all convenient. Some of that weight and bulk resulted from its internal lead-acid battery, which Apple claimed was capable of providing its power for 6-12 hours. In practice, unless you flew supersonic on Concorde, it wasn’t likely to last a transatlantic flight.
Two years later, Apple replaced that with PowerBook 100, 140 and 170 Macs, the first that were truly laptops rather than just luggables. Although the 100 still relied on a lead-acid battery, the 140 and 170 introduced 2.5 amp-hour NiCads. This was also the start of much confusion among users over battery care.
Lead-acid batteries live longest when kept fairly fully charged, and like to be trickle-charged whenever possible. At the time, conventional wisdom was that nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries were prone to a ‘memory effect’ whereby repeated charge-discharge cycles would somehow result in falling charge capacity until the battery was incapable of delivering any useful working time. As a result, users resorted to all kinds of magic tricks to try to maintain their 2-3 hour battery endurance, the period they could run off battery alone. While these new PowerBooks were less than half the weight of the original Portable, their useful working time on battery was still insufficient for many internal flights within the US or Europe.
In 1992, Apple started introducing new PowerBook models featuring the next generation of batteries, nickel-metal hydride or NiMH, pushing their endurance to as long as 6 hours if you were lucky. Their charge and use characteristics were different from NiCads and lead-acid, and although Apple provided battery management software, many seemed to distrust it and preferred their own routines. Given that at this time a PowerBook could have any of five different battery types (as there were Type I, II and III NiMH), some confusion was inevitable.
This proved just the right market for expensive battery conditioners, aimed at organisations with many PowerBooks, and costing significantly less than all the replacement batteries they claimed to save. To this day I don’t know whether any of their proprietary charge-discharge sequences ever improved either endurance or overall working life, but they seemed a good idea at the time. The PowerBook 520 of May 1994 supported one or two “Intelligent” NiMH batteries with a claimed endurance of up to 5 hours each, and had at last reached the capacity needed to operate a Mac for the duration of a transatlantic flight, so long as you went no further than the East Coast.
Just over a year later, in the PowerBook 190cs, Apple brought the first of the new generation with lithium ion batteries, although in that case it resulted in a small reduction in endurance compared with the NiMH battery in the 190. From 1997. LiIon became standard for almost all the remaining PowerBook models until 2006, when the first MacBook Pro with its shiny new Intel Core Duo processor also brought lithium-polymer, as used today.
Battery capacities had been rising slowly, and that MacBook Pro’s battery provided 60 watt-hours, giving an endurance of ‘up to’ 4.5 hours on a full charge. For the first time, Apple felt confident enough to forecast the working life of a maximum (that ‘up to’ again) of 300 charge cycles.
In the years since, battery capacity has increased further, as has endurance. For example, the 17-inch MacBook Pro from early 2009 had a 95 watt-hour lithium polymer battery claimed to run for ‘up to’ 8 hours from a full charge, and to have a working life of a maximum of 1,000 cycles.
Users were provided with basic power management features in the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences.
There was also an active market in third-party monitoring and management software, here Battery Health Monitor from Sonora Graphics.
This is Energy Saver a couple of years later, in 2011.
This shows the Energy Saver pane, detailed information in System Information, and another third-party utility, coconutBattery Plus by Coconut-Flavour, in 2020.
The next big step up came not with better batteries, but in 2020 with the switch from Intel CPUs to Apple silicon chips. The following year, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with a capacity of nearly 8.7 amp-hours (99.6 watt-hours) was claimed to run for up to 14 hours browsing over Wi-Fi, with the same 1,000 cycle battery working life.
The chart above shows how capacity, expressed here in watt-hours, has increased in major new PowerBook and MacBook Pro models over this period. The most substantial increases occurred in 1997-98 and 2007-08, coinciding with the introduction of LiIon batteries and Intel MacBook Pros.
Claimed endurance on a fully-charged battery has risen exponentially over time, but I doubt whether that will be sustained for much longer.
As you might expect, there’s also a looser non-linear relationship between battery capacity and claimed endurance, although that has altered with the transition to low-power Apple silicon chips.
As many have discovered, even using battery management software in macOS, some batteries die young, and others can swell alarmingly. Over this period of 35 years, Apple has operated various extended battery support schemes, and faced criticism over battery working life. Some have even alleged that battery replacement is a profitable service for Apple. But in the long run, many of us have made increasing use of battery-powered Macs, and they have transformed many lives.
无论有没有真正购入一台 Apple Vision Pro，你可能都对其提供的沉浸视频所带来的震撼观感有所耳闻。
苹果官方对 Apple 沉浸视频的评价是「叹为观止」的。这是一种全新的叙事形式，能够通过 8K 3D 视频与 180 度视域和空间音频的配合，给观众以身临其境之感。
今年 7 月开始，Vision Pro 已经陆续上线了一批电影、纪录片、音乐会甚至体育赛事的「沉浸」版本。从官方演示视频来看，其所呈现的「视界」的确令人心驰神往。
▲图源：Apple
惊叹之余，你是否也有过对这类格式视频幕后工作的好奇：Apple 沉浸视频到底是如何拍摄和制作的？
影像技术公司 Blackmagic Design 推出的 URSA Cine Immersive 就是一款专为拍摄 Apple 沉浸式视频而设计的商业摄影机。这款摄影机于今年 6 月首次亮相，近日已经开始接受预订，将在 2025 年初进行首批交付。
不过，URSA Cine Immersive 的价格不菲，售价高达 30000 美元（约合 22 万元），几乎相当于 8.5 台苹果 Vision Pro 的价格。如此昂贵，可见其定位并不是「消费级」，而是为专业人士提供的创作工具。
▲图源：Blackmagic Design
URSA Cine Immersive 是一款「双镜头」摄影机。为了拍摄「Apple Immersive Video」，其具有包含两个 180 度立体镜头的固定定制镜头系统，专为摄影机中的大画幅图像传感器而设计。
值得一提的是，URSA Cine Immersive 使用了「极其精确」的镜头姿态数据，这些数据是每台摄像机独有的，在制造时生成，经过校准后存储在设备上，其在后期编辑过程中能使 3D 视频更加精确和稳定。
这款设备拥有单眼 8160*7200 的超高分辨率，是 Vision Pro 单眼分辨率的两倍多，官方称之为「像素级同步」。它能够拍摄每秒 90 帧的 3D 沉浸视频，并且每帧都有 16 档动态范围，以确保细节和色彩准确性。
▲图源：Blackmagic Design
URSA Cine Immersive 使用全新的「Blackmagic RAW」格式拍摄和存储视频，这种格式可以不仅记录白平衡、数字场记板信息和自定义 LUT，还可以存储上面提到的摄像机元数据以及镜头数据等。
不仅如此，URSA Cine Immersive 还拥有诸多其他亮点：
此外，这款设备还拥有轻巧坚固的机身，兼顾了摄影师和工作人员的跟拍和转场需求。
▲图源：PetaPixel
除了推出「全球首款用于 Apple 沉浸视频的摄影机」之外，Blackmagic Design 还带来了其旗下专业视频编辑软件达芬奇（DaVinci Resolve Studio）的重磅更新，实现了 Apple 沉浸视频的「无缝」工作流程：
▲图源：Blackmagic Design
更新后，官方称达芬奇为「世界首款用于 Apple 沉浸视频的编辑软件」，Blackmagic Design 的首席执行官格兰特·佩蒂（Grant Petty）则表示达芬奇的更新将实现 Apple 沉浸式视频的真正「端到端」工作流程。
佩蒂还表示「期待于电影制片人密切合作」。Blackmagic Design 的软硬件「组合拳」，加上苹果的审美理念，我们也期待着在未来看到更加打动人心的 Apple 沉浸作品。
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最近，苹果在基带芯片上的动作真不小。
明年春季，iPhone SE 或将搭载苹果首款自研 5G 芯片。若进展顺利，2026 年第二代支持毫米波的基带芯片将应用于 iPhone 18 和高端 iPad，而代号「Prometheus」的第三代芯片也随之而出。
iPhone 能否凭借自研基带改善一直以来饱受诟病的信号短板，我们先按下不表，现在有个更有意思的事情。
前不久，爱范儿发布了一篇讨论 MagSafe 的文章，在你来我往的评论区中，有条评论抛出了一个看似「跑题」的问题：
你们知道 MacBook 最大的刚需是什么吗，是户外没有无线网，急需的 5G！平板电脑都能用 5G，MacBook 为什么不能？
给 MacBook 安装 5G 芯片，不知道为什么，听起来总归有点怪，但事情的发展往往比想象更意外。
一语成谶，彭博社最新的报告揭示，苹果的确打算为 MacBook 系列配备 5G 基带芯片。
让 MacBook 像 iPhone 一样，随时随地接入互联网，似乎正在成为苹果的下一个计划。
既然苹果说要做，那我们就来看看，做这件事，到底有什么好处？
作为一名编辑，我最头疼的莫过于出差时处理工作。一旦需要紧急完成任务，而周围却没有稳定网络，我只能让 iPhone 承担「外挂网线」的角色，牺牲它那本就捉襟见肘的续航，以确保 MacBook 在没有 Wi-Fi 的情况下依然能够正常联网。
显而易见，开头的评论已经给出了第一个答案，对于经常出差或从事户外工作的用户而言，MacBook 内置信号基带无疑是一件充满安全感的事情。
没有出差或是户外需求的用户，5G 芯片的加入也有其用处。
在现在的流媒体 app 或是游戏 app 中，有句话大家一定不陌生：
正在使用移动网络优化体验。
类似的机制完全可以用在 MacBook 上，用以提升网络的稳定性。
在 Wi-Fi 和 5G 网络的双方加持下，通宵下载什么大文件都不怕网络抽风，一觉醒来任务稳稳当当地跑完，零意外，再也不怕出现第二天起床看见「网络连接已中断」的提示。
最后，也别忘了苹果的最爱——隐私。
公共 Wi-Fi 一直是一个难题，对于我们这种普通用户而言，互联网的防御和威胁是一件潜在但完全有可能的事，如果 MacBook 安装了 5G 基带，能够自行解决网络连接问题，就不必依赖来路不明的热点，从源头降低信息外泄的风险。
对于那些需要严密保护工作信息却又不想每天提心吊胆的用户而言，这无疑多了一层安心的防护。
说了这么多好处，那么问题来了：内置基带这么好，别的厂家不做吗？
正如那句老话，太阳底下无新事，给笔记本电脑安装 5G 基带，并不算是一件多么稀奇的事情，回头看向历史，有不少老牌电脑厂商早就做过。
2005 年，索尼推出 VAIO VGN-T350 系列笔记本电脑。
▲ 索尼 VAIO VGN-T350/L
该系列电脑通过内置的 Cingular EDGE 蜂窝数据模块，允许用户无需外接数据卡或使用手机基带，即可在有移动蜂窝网络信号的地方直接上网。
在此之前，笔记本电脑通常只能通过外置 PCMCIA 数据卡或借助手机蓝牙/数据线连接来实现移动数据访问。
索尼 VAIO VGN-T350 首次将此类蜂窝网络模块直接内置于笔记本内部，从而被广泛视为「首款商业化上市、真正实现了内置蜂窝数据上网的笔记本机型」。
▲ VGN-T300 系列配备了无线局域网与无线广域网（蜂窝网络）指示灯
随后不久，IBM、联想、戴尔与惠普等高端笔记本也纷纷推出带有内置 3G/EDGE/CDMA2000 等模块的笔记本，都将直接连接互联网作为卖点之一。
别的不说，就连苹果也动过心。
2011 年，一台 MacBook 原型机出现在 eBay 网站上，在一番激烈的竞逐后，这台 MacBook 的价格已经升高至 7 万美元。
之所以引来如此多人的关注，是因为这台原型机实在是太过特殊——屏幕的侧边，延伸出来了一条天线。
▲ 带有天线的 MacBook 原型机
随着 7 万美元大关的突破，这台原型机突然从 eBay 上撤下，并没有成交，不过卖家 evilroot 在 MacRumors 发布了更多的信息，以满足大家的好奇心。
这台 MacBook 天线版原型机大约生产于 2007 年，具有红色电路板（而正式版本是蓝色），除了外观上显眼的天线外，还有内存盖下方摆放的 SIM 卡卡槽，据推测，这台 MacBook 原型机将支持 3G 网络，在 MacRumors 上，evilroot 对这根天线做了更多描述：
老实说，我认为大部分关于天线看起来不好的东西都是由于我拍摄照片的角度。它看起来相当大。实际上，它非常小，当延伸时，它只从显示屏上突出约2英寸，可能一毫米或两毫米厚。
更有趣的是，天线实际上是用磁铁固定在设备上的——有点像 MagSafe 功能中使用的磁铁，早在 2008 年苹果就为此申请了专利。
▲ 左、中：MacBook 原型机的天线｜右：2008 年，苹果申请的天线专利
当然，时代与技术的限制之下，这台 MacBook 只停留在了原型机的程度，没有正式推出。
时至今日，联想 ThinkPad 系列中，还有部分机型提供内置的蜂窝模块，通过 4G 基带随时随地连接互联网，戴尔的 Latitude 系列也有些型号搭载高通 Snapdragon X55 基带，为用户提供无 Wi-Fi 环境下的上网服务，惠普 EliteBook 系列、微软 Surface Pro 系列，都各自有类似的选择。
可以说，但凡是主打办公的高端笔记本，曾经都多多少少做过这样的尝试，不过始终没有大面积铺开。
原因也很简单：续航是个大问题。
不过，这个问题对于苹果而言，算不上困扰——自从 M 芯片推出以来，凭借高能效的 ARM 架构与系统级集成的 SoC，MacBook 的续航得到了史无前例的提升。
与我目前用的 i9 16 寸 MacBook Pro 相比，现在 14 寸的 MacBook Pro 都可以轻松将续航翻倍。
在强大的续航支持下，原本束手束脚的使用体验变得随意起来，一颗高度集成于 SoC 中的基带，不再是压力和负担。
再加上随着时代的进步，消费者对电脑的需求开始趋于多样化，每个人拿到 MacBook 的使用场景都不一样——这位可能是放在家中作为代码编辑器，承担主要的工作任务，而另一个人则可能拎着 MacBook 与相机一起在广袤的无人区拍摄银河和星空。
此时，在续航已经大大增强的基础上，让 MacBook 适应更多的使用环境，不是一件错事。
5G 基带出现在 Mac 上，还有一个很容易被忽视的原因——环境。
虽然苹果没有公布 MacBook 系列的具体销量，但取决于 MacBook 在整个 Mac 产品线中占据绝对的生态优势位置，我们可以从总体的营收数据来窥斑见豹，推测 MacBook 系列在哪个市场卖得最好。
根据 MacroMicro 的数据来看，2024 Q3 数据中，大中华区在苹果营收占比排名第三，为 15.84%，而前两名分别是北美的 43.89% 与欧洲的 26.26%。
▲ 数据与图片来自 @MacroMicro
如果粗略地将营收占比看作用户占比，那么 MacBook 的用户更多集中在北美与欧洲。
而这两个地方，自有国情。
在欧美，商业通讯运营商的大部分套餐有一个巧妙的限制——流量给得很大方，甚至有可能无限制使用，但如果是作为热点使用，则有严格分级的流量上限。
比如 Verizon、T-Mobile、AT&T 的普通套餐，普遍有着热点 10-15GB 的限制，哪怕花大价钱订阅最高套餐，也会在 50G 左右被限速，比如 T-Mobile 的基础套餐，需要选择 75 美元的第三档，才能使用 15GB 的热点流量，想要更多的热点流量，需提高到 90 美元的档位，才能使用 50GB 的热点流量。
▲ 运营商 Verizon 的 55 美元套餐，限制为 60GB 的热点流量
在流媒体兴起的时代，但凡有跟视频沾点边儿的工作需求，这点流量真的不够用。
按照惯例，在文章的结尾，我还是要泼一桶冷水。
毕竟东西唱得再好听，也要落实到消费者手上，才是真的好。
按照苹果的习惯，就算 5G 基带成功推出，我们依然面临一个问题——有非常大的可能，这套方案会使用 eSIM。
eSIM 这个东西，我们就不再浪费笔墨了，iPad Pro 的蜂窝版近在眼前，完全可以作为参考。
不过，无论怎么说，从技术、需求与环境的综合视角来看，苹果想为 MacBook 加上基带这件事，虽然乍一看令人意外，但细细思量，的的确确是在情理之中，堪称苹果的欧·亨利时刻。
2020 年，爱范儿曾经发布过一篇《苹果造芯，拯救 iPhone 信号 | 硬哲学》，详细剖析了苹果自研基带芯片的布局和野心。
2019 年，在苹果与高通和解的当天，英特尔宣布退出 5G 基带芯片市场。
彼时，MagSafe 离开大众视线已经四年有余，神秘的 M1 芯片还没揭开面纱，iPhone 刚刚开启全面屏时代不久。
同年 7 月，英特尔将相关团队与资产打包，以 10 亿美元的价格卖给了苹果，至此，苹果走上自研基带芯片的道路。
转眼五年过去，MagSafe 早已回归，M 系列芯片已经迭代到 M4，iPhone 只多了一颗相机控制键。
此时，我们终于听到了苹果基带芯片的脚步，正以一种缓慢而坚定的方式向我们靠近。
#欢迎关注爱范儿官方微信公众号：爱范儿（微信号：ifanr），更多精彩内容第一时间为您奉上。
苹果在去年推出的虚拟现实头显设备 Vision Pro 声称标志着「空间计算」时代的开启。但一直以来，Vision Pro 因其比较有限的使用场景和昂贵的售价并未获得市场的热烈反应，销量也因此陷入停滞，还不到 50 万台。
分析认为，如果苹果想要扩大 Vision Pro 的受众群体，应该着眼于那些「游戏玩家」。然而，目前其大约支持 270 款游戏，其中只有 12 款针对该设备进行了优化适配，实在是缺乏游戏方面的吸引力。
就连苹果公司 CEO 库克也曾直言 Vision Pro「不是一款大众市场的产品」。华尔街日报的评价更是一针见血：大多数消费者还没有准备好为一个「酷玩具」掏出 3500 美元。
▲图源：MacRumors
不过，接下来苹果和索尼的这项合作不知道能否让正在观望的消费者们心甘情愿「掏空腰包」，一睹其风采。
根据彭博社马克·古尔曼（Mark Gurman）在 PowerOn 通讯中的报道，苹果正在考虑将索尼的 PlayStation VR 2 控制器引入 Vision Pro 设备。也就是说，Vision Pro 即将可以用索尼的 PS 手柄控制了。
据悉，苹果在今年年初已经就合作事宜与索尼方面进行了接触，而索尼则已经为 Vision Pro 和 PSVR 2 控制器的适配和兼容工作了几个月。此外，苹果正在与一些第三方游戏开发者就支持索尼手柄一事开展讨论和协商。
苹果和索尼原计划在几周之前对外公布两者兼容的消息，但由于技术原因有所推迟。尽管如此，古尔曼仍然表示「这是一个令人兴奋的进展」。
▲索尼 PSVR 2 设备（图源：Tom’s Guide）
实际上，PSVR 2 并不是 Vision Pro 支持的首个外部控制器。此前，Vision Pro 已经支持使用 PS5 和 Xbox 控制器进行操作，但它们不支持 VR 游戏操作所需的六自由度（6DOF），同时也并未针对虚拟现实体验进行优化。
PSVR 2 则是索尼为 PS5 设计的下一代虚拟现实输入设备，其不仅内置了 6 轴运动传感器系统（三轴陀螺仪+三轴加速度计），还支持与 PS5 的 DualSense 控制器类似的自适应触发器和触觉检测反馈功能。
搭配头显使用，PSVR 2 还支持眼动追踪和头显反馈等功能。值得一提的是，这款控制器最大的亮点是其采用了全新的「球形」设计，索尼声称其更自然，更舒适，并且提供了「高度自由」的手部移动空间。
▲图源：The Verge
古尔曼称，阻碍 Vision Pro 成为游戏设备的两个主要原因是「内容」和「控制器」。换句话讲，除了游戏适配方面的缺乏和不足和开发者意愿不强烈的情况以外，Vision Pro 现有的操控方式使其并不适合用来玩游戏。
由于 Vision Pro 的定位更偏向于生产力和媒体消费设备，并且其设计「并没有从一开始就考虑到游戏」，因此它的控制方式以眼动追踪、手势识别和语音控制为主。古尔曼评价这些方式「有损游戏前景」。
如果能与 PSVR 2 控制器搭配使用，无疑将大大提高 Vision Pro 的游戏性能，使其更像一台「游戏机」。此外，控制器还允许用户进行更为精确的输入：摇杆和方向键可以进行页面滚动，而触发按钮可以取代手指捏合手势进行选择。
这样一来，用户不仅能够更加高效地使用 visionOS 系统，在 Vision Pro 上使用 Final Cut Pro 或者 PS 等编辑类软件也会更加方便快捷。
▲Final Cut Pro 界面（图源：Editors Keys）
目前，索尼的 PSVR 2 控制器并未单独出售。如果苹果和索尼的这项合作进展顺利的话，消息称其将在苹果的在线商店和线下零售店（Apple Store）中销售。根据古尔曼的说法，除非这一项目被「突然叫停」，否则它大概率会实现。
除了索尼控制器的助力以外，苹果需要在游戏方面投入更多资金并重新考虑 Vision Pro 的营销策略，方能使其以全新的面貌（Fresh Look）展现在消费者眼前。
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苹果今年的日子，并没有像 iPhone 销量表现出来的那样好过：App Store 在欧盟的纷争，Vision Pro 的惨淡销量，iPhone 16 上饱受争议的拍摄按钮，光打雷不下雨的苹果智能……但是我们却没有在任何公共场合听到苹果对于上述争论的官方回应，而这篇最近来自《连线》杂志对 Tim Cook 的专访，解开了这些问题的答案。
以下是重点摘要：
原文作者：Steven Levy
原文链接：https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-tim-cook-wants-apple-to-literally-save-your-life/
每次我访问苹果公园园区时，我的脑海中都会浮现出在建设完成前的一次参观，那时地板上还有灰尘，现在郁郁葱葱的植被所在的地方还是泥泞。
我的向导是苹果公司的首席执行官蒂姆·库克。他以主人的自豪感带领我穿过这个耗资 50 亿美元的圆形巨兽，并且解释说，承诺建设新园区是一个「百年决定」。
今天，我回到这个开业七年后充满活力的 Apple Ring，再次见到库克。
科技世界正处于一个转折点。最强大的公司要么被绊倒，要么确保他们数十年的主导地位。
今天，我回到开业七年后充满活力的 Apple Ring，再次见到库克。
科技界正处于一个转折点。最强大的公司要么跌倒，要么确保其数十年的主导地位。我们在这里讨论库克在这个高风险环境中的重大举措：即将发布 Apple Intelligence，这是该公司在炙手可热的生成式 AI 领域的第一个重要产品。有些人认为它为时已晚。
一整年，苹果的竞争对手一直在用他们的聊天机器人引起关注、让投资者眼花缭乱并占据新闻头条，而这家全球最有价值的公司（在我写这篇文章时）正在展示一款昂贵、笨重的头戴式 AR 设备。苹果必须正确处理 AI。毕竟，公司不可能像建筑物一样屹立百年。
库克没有惊慌，像他的前一任 CEO 史蒂夫·乔布斯一样，他不相信第一个就是最好的。「经典苹果」正如他所说，进入了一个嘈杂的先行者领域，并凭借对新奇与实用性的强烈把握，推出了使最新技术变得亲切甚至性感的产品。
▲ 图片来自：WIRED
回想一下 iPod 是如何重新思考数字音乐的？它不是第一个 MP3 播放器，但其紧凑性、易用性和与在线商店的整合为人们提供了一种新的音乐消费方式。库克还争辩说，苹果一直在为人工智能革命做准备。
早在 2018 年，他就从 Google 挖来了顶级 AI 经理约翰·詹南德雷亚，这是公司高级副总裁职位罕见的扩张。然后他停止了一个长期运行的智能汽车项目（一个从未被苹果公开承认的公开秘密），并调动公司的机器学习人才将 AI 构建到其软件产品中。
6 月，苹果宣布了成果：为整个产品线打造一层人工智能。库克还与聊天机器人领域的黄金标准 OpenAI 达成了协议，以便他的用户可以访问 ChatGPT。我获得了他们计划展示的一些演示，包括一个通过口头提示创建自定义表情符号的工具和一个易于使用的人工智能图片生成器 Image Playground。（我还没有测试过苹果乏善可陈的人工智能代理 Siri 的复活。）
果人工智能最突出的特点或许是——至少苹果公司是这样认为的——它注重隐私，这是库克执政时期的一大特点。这些人工智能工具将通过最新 iPhone 和相对较新的 Mac 上的软件更新推出，主要在设备本身上运行——你不会将数据发送到云端。库克保证，更复杂的人工智能任务的计算将在苹果数据中心的安全区域进行。
回到 Ring 后，我想起的另一件事是库克非常善于吹嘘他的重大决策的成果，从 Apple Watch 到他对定制硅芯片的押注，这些决策引发了推动苹果手机和笔记本电脑发展的创新。（更不用说那些没有成功的决策，比如那个价值数十亿美元的智能汽车项目。）
当他走进我们开会的会议室时，我知道库克会非常热情，表现出他在阿拉巴马州童年时期培养的礼貌，同时平静地夸大苹果产品的优点，并抵御对他非常强大的公司的批评。
史蒂夫乔布斯会像布埃纳文图拉的雨一样向记者走来，积极地传达他的信息；库克则用柔和的薄雾笼罩着他的对话者，并吐露对公司努力的敬畏之情。
当然，最终的评价将来自用户。但如果说 40 年的苹果报道经验教会了我什么，那就是：如果人工智能的第一次迭代失败了，库克会在未来预先录制的主题演讲中毫不后悔地称赞新版本是「我们打造过的最好的苹果智能」。
尽管压力重重，但库克从不让你看到他大汗淋漓。
*以下是采访原文，内容已经过作者编辑：
我不会说那是一个顿悟时刻。它像浪潮一样涌现，像滚滚雷声。早在 2017 年，我们就在产品中内置了神经引擎。人工智能和机器学习的重要性已经显而易见。很明显，我们必须吸引大量人才，这将是我们产品的新时代。
▲ 图片来自：WIRED
我们希望创新，让事物变得个人化和私密化。我们开始以典型的苹果方式思考这些事物的交集——如何提供这项技术，使其造福人们并改善他们的生活？
我认为确实存在。我们为所有东西都想了各种名字，最后决定使用 Apple Intelligence。它不是人工智能的双关语。事后看来，它似乎很简单。
我们从未谈论过收费问题。我们认为它有点像多点触控（这种新技术），它推动了智能手机革命和现代平板电脑的发展。
我们是一家以电子邮件为基础的公司，我从用户、员工、合作伙伴等处获得了大量数据。
让它总结作者的回复是改变游戏规则的关键，让它为你确定优先级，这样你就不用像往常一样（对邮件）进行分类了。当然，还有像 Image Playground 这样的有趣功能。
我认为它可以让你变得更加友善，而且在很多方面，也会变得更有趣。
它仍然来自于你。它是你的想法和你的观点。你和我都记得个人电脑出现后带来的生产力。
你不再是敲打计算器，而是在电子表格上做一些事情。你不再是打字机，而是文字处理器。Logic Pro 帮助音乐家创作音乐，但他们仍然是作者。
我不这么认为。使用该工具后，它看起来更加精致。使用该工具的决定权仍在您手中。这就像您和我合作做某事一样——一加一大于二，对吧？
这些担忧已经存在多年了。我记得当时人们觉得计算器会从根本上侵蚀人们的数学能力。这是真的吗？或者它是否让某些事情变得更有效率？
我没忘记。
▲ 图片来自：WIRED
我们不认为这是生态系统的价值。它所做的事是为了帮助人们，让他们的生活更美好。它显然做到了这一点。
我们始终会考虑隐私问题。我们不接受在高度隐私和高度智能之间做出取舍。Apple Intelligence 的大部分功能都在设备上运行，但对于某些用户，我们需要更强大的模型。因此，我们设计了私有云计算，它基本上具有与您的设备相同的隐私和安全性。我们一直在努力，直到我们想出了正确的想法。
这是巨大的推动力。我们一直认为，我们应该拥有我们产品所依赖的主要技术。史蒂夫谈到了这一点。我并不是说我们一直都是这么做的，但我们一直都相信这一点，而实现这一目标需要一段漫长的旅程。
我不想预测。我们认为 OpenAI 是先驱，处于领先地位。我们认为我们的部分客户希望获得世界知识（Apple Intelligence 不提供），我们希望以一种优雅的方式整合它，同时仍然尊重人们选择是否这样做的能力。
这完全是无稽之谈。我只想说，我们的作风是不会去投资多家公司。我们很少这样做。因此，我们在那里这样做会很奇怪，会是个例外。
我不是说我们从未考虑过这个问题。我只是说，我们这样做是罕见的举动。我们以前做过 ARM。我们还做过谁？我们还做过一两个。
ARM 相当不错。「1990 年，苹果投资 300 万美元，拥有 ARM 30% 的股份，这些股份价值数亿美元。但更重要的是，ARM 过去和现在都是重要的芯片供应商，尤其是 iPhone 的芯片供应商。」
现在，技术已经足够先进，我们可以将其提供给人们并改变他们的生活，而这正是我们关注的重点。我们将继续推动这一进程，看看它会把我们带到何方。
我们将继续讨论这个问题。
哦，当然。这不仅对苹果来说如此，对全世界也是如此。这对人类有如此多的益处。有些事情需要设置护栏吗？当然。我们对自己所做和不做的事情非常谨慎。我希望其他人也一样。AGI 本身至少还有很长的路要走。我们会一路弄清楚在这样的环境中需要什么样的护栏。
是的，挑战更多。但我们是否已经实现目标了呢？不，绝对没有。有了更多的数据中心，你就可以使用更多的可再生能源，而我们现在已经建立了这种能力。自 2015 年以来，我们的碳足迹减少了一半以上，而我们的净销售额却增长了 50% 以上。我对 2030 年感到非常乐观。
我没有看到这一点。
我担心人们无休止地滚动屏幕。这就是我们做屏幕使用时间等事情的原因，试图引导人们。我们支持人们给自己设限，比如限制收到的通知数量。我们在家长控制领域也做了很多事情。我的基本信念是，如果你看手机的时间比看别人眼睛的时间多，那就有问题了。
我不知道史蒂夫会怎么想。当然，我和他共事了很长时间，有自己的看法。但事实是，人们用 iPhone 拍摄了如此多的照片和视频，因此让 iPhone 变得简单而优雅非常重要。如此重要以至于它值得拥有相机控制功能。
▲ 图片来自：WIRED
它是一款早期采用者产品，适合那些今天想要明天技术的人。这些人正在购买它，生态系统正在蓬勃发展。对我们来说，最终的考验是生态系统。我不知道你是否经常使用它，但我一直在那里。我总是看到新的应用程序。
他是苹果的朋友，能从 Stevie 那里得到反馈真是太好了。当然，他的艺术造诣是无与伦比的。苹果长期以来的共同点之一是，我们不会在设计过程的最后阶段才添加无障碍功能。它是嵌入的。因此，获得他的反馈是关键。
是的，从外形尺寸来看，这是一个随着时间的推移而发生的进步。AR 是一件大事。借助 Vision Pro，我们已经发展成为迄今为止最先进的技术，我认为从电子问题来看，它是世界上最先进的技术。我们拭目以待。
对我来说，很明显，如果你放眼未来，回顾并问苹果最大的贡献是什么，那一定是在健康领域。我坚信这一点。
当我们开始用 Apple Watch拉动这根弦时，发生了一系列事件。我们从一些简单的事情开始，比如监测你的心率，然后发现我们可以接收心脏信号来获得心电图和心房颤动测定。
现在我们正在监测睡眠呼吸暂停。随着时间的推移，我收到了很多人的来信，如果没有手腕上的警报，他们可能就活不下来了。
这并不是要与市场上的助听器竞争。而是要说服听力受损的人使用 AirPods。绝大多数听力问题患者尚未得到诊断。
对于某些人来说，助听器是一种耻辱，而我们可以用 AirPods 来解决这个问题。我们可以让人们自己诊断。这是健康的民主化。
我今天不会宣布任何消息。但我们正在进行研究。我们倾尽全力，研究那些已经酝酿多年的事物。我们花了很长时间研究听力，才将其调整到我们觉得合适的水平。
我们认为智能手机的寿命会很长。会有更多的创新。很明显，你看看第一款上市的 iPhone 和 iPhone 16，它们是完全不同的，对吧？
它比我想象的更能促进合作。这是设计的一个关键组成部分，但这里有很多地方你会意外地遇到人。在自助餐厅、咖啡吧、当你穿过小路时。
此外，这里与史蒂夫的联系令人难以置信且非常深厚。我们的剧院以他的名字命名，我们一直在想念他，但我也能在其他地方感受到他。
在疫情期间，我们了解到观众主要通过网络观看。剧院里能容纳的人很少，我们希望让更多人参与到发布会本身。由于舞台上的过渡等，在录音带上做这件事比在现场做要有效得多。
我真的很想念它。我真的很想念它。
▲ 图片来自：WIRED
当你谈论某件事，比如指控某种行为时，你应该谈论具体的公司以及该行为是什么，而不是把事情归为一类。
这完全误解了我们所做的事情。我们的用户知道这一点。我们总是把自己放在用户的立场上，问什么对他们最好，什么对他们的隐私最好，什么对他们的安全最好。
这就是故事。我们将向法官讲述这个故事，看看会发生什么。
我现在被问到这个问题的次数比以前更多了。
随着年龄的增长，随着头发变白，我爱这个地方，史蒂文。能来到这里是我一生的荣幸。我会一直坚持下去，直到我脑海里的声音说：「是时候了」，然后我会专注于下一个篇章。但很难想象没有苹果的生活，因为自 1998 年以来，我的生活就与这家公司紧密相连。这是我成年后绝大部分时间的生活。所以我爱它。
这也由其他人来决定。但我认为苹果将因提供改变世界、真正改善人们生活的伟大产品而被人们铭记。我们的用户在走进苹果商店时会感受到这一点。他们在使用产品时会感受到这一点。飓风袭击北卡罗来纳州时，我收到了很多信息，人们发现他们有能力在蜂窝网络瘫痪时发出 SOS 和短信。这提醒人们我们为什么这样做以及我们有多关心。这将是苹果的遗产。
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请从下图中找出，哪台是上一代 MacBook Pro M3？哪台是新发布的 MacBook Pro M4？
如果你看不出区别，也别怀疑自己，因为事实就是如此，除了新一代顶配机型的 C 口数量有些变化，其他还真就一模一样。
外观没升级，那内部会不会有变化？从 M3 到 M4 会不会是唯一的区别？找到答案最好的办法就是眼见为实，刚好最近 iFixit 在拆解完 iPhone 16 系列、Apple Watch Series 10 系列、iPad Pro 系列以及 Mac mini M4 之后，又对 MacBook M4 动了手。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
总得来说，苹果在机器可修复性方面取得了比较大的进步，比如之前在拆解 Mac mini M4 时，iFixit 就发现了它的存储可升级，另外 iPhone 16 和 16 Plus 也用上了电诱导粘合剂脱粘技术，用 9V 低电压电流，流经新的离子液体电池粘合剂，就能让胶水失去粘性，电池可以轻松取下。
按照这种势头，今年应该是苹果产品从里到外升级最多的一年，但 MacBook Pro M4 却成了那个意外。毫不夸张地说，名字的 M4 就是最大的变化。
除此之外，其他的内部设计和上一代产品基本保持了一致，但主板的一些元件排布和散热风扇的尺寸，有了些许不同。
MacBook 的拆解还是熟悉的配方，从底部背板开始，依次拧下八颗五角钉螺丝，相比于其他需要从屏幕拆的产品来说，从非屏幕区动手有更大的安全保障，避免了力度把握不好而损伤屏幕的风险。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
取下所有外置螺丝后，并不能直接取下底板，为了加强底板与机身的连接，它们之间还有卡扣结构，需要用点儿巧劲撬一下才能看见机身内部。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
MacBook 的拆解非常解压，因为拆下背板后，眼见之处就是所有，没有太多隐藏起来的结构和元件，所以可以直接和上代搭载 M3 芯片的机型对比。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
把两代机型放在一起比较，MacBook Pro M4 Pro 的散热器模组要比 M3 Pro 的更大，仔细对比下你还能看见主板上的 IC（集成电路）布局有些不同，有些在 M3 Pro 上很明显的触点，在 M4 Pro 上成了空白一片，大概率是被集成在了其他区域。
有意思的是，虽然芯片性能升级，但是两者的电池能量没有任何变化，都是 72.6Wh。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
而 M4 Pro 芯片支持最高 64GB 高速统一内存和高达 273GB/s 的内存带宽，内存带宽相比 M3 Pro 提升多达 75%，达到其他 AI PC 芯片的两倍。
▲ 图片来自：Apple
如果你经常看数码产品的拆解，其实不难发现最占机身空间的，不是科技含量最高的主板，而是被人吐槽总是不够用的电池。
但想要把这个最占地方的大家伙拆下来，往往不是第一步，有时候为了把电池拆出来，甚至都快把其他的零部件取完了，才能轮到它，而在全新 MacBook Pro 上也不例外。
iFixit 从触控板的柔性电缆作为入手点，并且把电池管理系统的数据线也一并拔出，不过想要在 MacBook 里拔出一个连接线，不是一件特别简单的事情，倒不是说有什么特殊的手法和技术含量，而是你几乎会在每一个需要拔出的接口处，看见一个用螺丝固定的金属保护垫片。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
触控板和主板的连接就只有这一根柔性电缆，虽说看起来触控板和主板以及电池拆卸的关系不大，但在 MacBook 里，先拆触控板非常重要，等到最后拆卸电池的时候，就会知道为什么得从这里下手。
紧接着，需要把围绕主板和电池周围一整圈的固定螺丝全部都拧下来，当然别忘了，每拔出一个连接线，就会至少有一颗螺丝和一片垫片被一同取下，这个过程不难，但却很耗时，iFixit 这次的拆解视频里有多次大段留白，都是留给了拧螺丝、取垫片和拔电缆的空镜，甚至连旁白都没有。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
虽说步骤相同，但是拆下的元件却不太一样，如果按照顺时针依次拆卸，大概顺序是角度传感器、音频插孔、麦克风、扬声器、风扇、键盘，以及另一个扬声器。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
绕了一整圈，最后才轮到 Touch ID 模块，还有背板顶部的显示屏。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
围绕主板周围的元件，大部分都是扁平式的单一插口，不过天线很特殊，它不像其他零部件用的大块头连接头，而是由多个小头组成的接头阵列。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
拔下插头后，还不能直接把模组取下，因为它和主机绑定的很紧密，你还得先拧开 9 个 iPhone 底部同款的螺钉后，才能把整个天线从主机上拿下。
到这时，从机身内部顺利取下的部件只有触控板和天线，以及一大堆固定螺丝和保护垫片，所以最重要主板和电池工作，经过了一顿折腾，才刚刚开始。
主板的固定螺丝有能直接看见拧下来的，比如周围的这些 Torx 4 和 Torx 6 螺钉。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
也有比较隐蔽的，它不像前面那种暴露式的，而是被藏在了黑色小海绵的下方，如果硬扯容易扯烂，除非你拆开之后就没有复原的打算，不然建议最好喷一点异丙醇在上面，能有效降低胶水的粘合力，从而能更轻松地、非暴力地取下黑色保护罩。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
做完这一切，终于能够把主板移动了，但不是一下子就能把主板撬下，而是要一边撬，一边用镊子移开各种柔性电缆和风扇上的垫圈，是有点麻烦，但也不会太糟心。起码比起前期拔线、拧螺丝的大量看不到任何成果的准备工作，现在已经能看到完工的希望了。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
在 iFixit 的拆解中，虽说最先拿下的是集成度非常高的主板，但他们没有对主板的结构布局有更多的对比解释，而是选择了继续拆卸电池，原因也很简单，在设备的使用中，电池的消耗和折损一般会快过其他的部件，这也就意味着它需要做到比其他零部件更易于更换的设计。
所以电池拆卸的方便与否，也是 iFixit 给 MacBook Pro M4 打出可修复性分数的重要参考标准。
和传统的、以及大部分的苹果产品一样，电池与机身的连接，还是用了易拉胶。易拉胶只是它的名字，但它的特性在实际使用中被一分为二， 一个是易拉，另一个是易断。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
经常看拆解视频的朋友应该对「易拉胶易断」这件事儿并不陌生，胶布没有去除干净，需要撬动电池才能将其取下，但是随之会增加安全风险，铝塑外壳的电池是软包装，螺丝刀和起子在撬电池时，容易对其造成损害，所以可修复性的分数也会受到影响。
为了将电池牢牢固定在框架上，苹果还给 MacBook Pro 多加了几条易拉胶，不过不从机身背面拉，而是要反转到正面，从触控板下方的缝隙里才能找到拉头，这也解释了为什么要先拆触控板，都是为最后的工作做的铺垫。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
为了拆电池，其实已经把配件卸的七七八八了，剩下的就是一些周边的配件，在拆解的过中，iFixit 还发现，MacBook Pro M4 和上一代 M3 一样：
无需焊接，不用暴力拆除，按部就班地拧螺丝、拔插口、拉胶条、撬卡扣，所有零部件都能轻松取下。当然，能取下且打开的零部件是大多数，但并不是全部，比如 TouchID 和新的相机按钮就被焊死，放在以前要么只能放弃探究内部构造，要么只能大力出奇迹。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
不过现在借助 CT 扫描仪，仍然可以在不破坏零件的前提下，把它们内部构造一览无遗。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
电源键的背部有一个非常简单的开关装置，用来闭合电路开启设备，或者断电关机。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
另一边的圆形模组里藏着一个微型 IC，将组件和 SoC 配对， 靠近组件表面的地方，是一个非常薄的电容传感器，能够测量皮肤上的凹凸，接着将其转换成二维地图信息，以供电脑读取相关数据，也就是指纹识别按键。
MagSafe 端口也同样被焊死，没法正常拆除，不过通过 CT 扫描后，可以非常清楚地看到里面的磁铁等结构。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
虽然在一些细节上的设计，会让 MacBook Pro M4 的评分受到影响，但总体来讲，这样延续的模块化设计，的确大幅提高了 MacBook 的可修复性。
Google 的模块化手机 Project Ara 当时给了人们不小的震撼，但只是网上的昙花一现，绝大部分人、甚至许多科技圈的从业者都没有见过实机，虽然之后也出现了有摩托罗拉的 Moto Z，用 Moto Mods 把手机变得不只是一台手机。
▲ 图片来自：Google
不过网上叫好，线下却没人叫座，此后模块化似乎成了一个可远观不可亵玩的畅想。模块化手机的确没能成功登陆市场，但模块化的理念却离我们很近，在轻易见不到的机身内部，模块化早已「深入机髓」，起码从每一个拆卸完的苹果产品上，都能看到这种趋势。
▲ 图片来自：iFixit
对于厂商来说，降低了制造成本，许多相同的零部件不用重新开模；对于用户而言，在长时间的使用中，也能降低维修费用，哪里坏了修哪里，不太会出现牵一发而动全身的情况。
说回这台全新的 MacBook，依靠 M4 芯片它又成了 PC 端的焦点之一，但通过拆解也不难发现，新机的确没有太大的变化，所以如果屏幕前的你刚好打算购入一台苹果笔记本，那你是会遵循买新不买旧的教义购入 MacBook M4？还是会根据实际需求购入 M3？又或者选择更具性价比的 M2 甚至是 Air 机型？
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For those working the land to grow crops, the start of the year was after the harvest was complete, when the first cooler days of autumn came in, before rain turned the fields and tracks to mud, and the winter’s frosts began. This was the time to start preparing arable fields for the growing season next year, with their first ploughing.
Robert Bevan’s The Turn Rice-Plough, Sussex from about 1909 shows two ploughmen turning a plough in a field in the south-east of England. Its title is probably a simple error for turnwrest, a dialect name used in Kent and Sussex to describe any type of one-way plough that needed to be turned at the end of a furrow as shown here.
Depending on the soil, weather and intended crop, this could be the first of more than five sessions with the plough, before the seed could be sown.
Pastures by rivers were often encouraged to flood during the winter, particularly in the month of February Fill Dyke as shown so well in Benjamin Williams Leader’s painting of country near Worcester in 1881. This both improved soil fertility and kept weeds at bay.
Jean-François Millet revisited his successful painting of a sower from fifteen years earlier in two pastel paintings with the same title, The Sower, from around 1865. In the distance to the right are two horses drawing a spike harrow, used following ploughing to prepare the surface of the earth for seed.
Once the young plants were growing vigorously, all that remained for the growing season was to keep them free from weeds, a laborious and back-breaking task commonly assigned to women.
Jules Breton’s The Weeders from 1868 is set in the fields just outside his home village of Courrières, where these labourers are pulling up thistles and other weeds until the moment the light becomes insufficient for them to work any longer.
Farmers with sheep or cattle usually timed the arrival of the lambs and calves for the spring, to give the young animals as much benefit as possible from the fine weather of the summer.
Rosa Bonheur’s Weaning the Calves (1879) is set in a glorious summer Alpine or Pyrenean landscape, with a dry stone herdsman’s hut at the left, where the menfolk lived while they were away from their families during the summer transhumance to upland grazing.
Anton Mauve’s Return of the Flock (1886-7) shows a small flock of unshorn ewes with young lambs, on the move in the late Spring or early summer.
In some cattle areas at least, once the Spring lambs and calves had been safely delivered into the care of their mothers, couples took the opportunity to get married, as confirmed by analyses of English parish registers. For those growing crops, though, there was little respite during the growing season, when fields had to be kept free of weeds before harvest.
By the end of the Spring or early summer, sheep and cattle were moved to summer grazing to allow the grass in hay meadows to grow ready for mowing during July or August, depending on the latitude and weather.
Mykola Pymonenko’s undated Haymaking shows women in Ukraine raking in the harvest to be transported by a hay wain drawn by a pair of oxen.
Samuel Palmer’s Shearers from about 1833-35 shows the seasonal work of a shearing gang, relieving these adult sheep of their fleece before the weather became too hot.
Meanwhile, the summer’s grain crop ripened and was ready for harvest.
Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s Harvesters from 1565 includes most of the outdoor stages from cutting the grain using scythes to transporting the harvest by cart for threshing.
Once the harvest was home, demands on the arable farmer eased, and some English parish records show a peak of marriages during the early autumn in areas predominantly farming sheep and grain. This was also the time for the harvest of fruit such as apples.
Camille Pissarro’s overtly Divisionist painting of Apple Picking, Éragny, was largely completed during the autumn of 1887.
This decisive phase of the year is shown well in Evelyn De Morgan’s Cadence of Autumn from 1905, here centred on the fruit harvest. Five women are shown in a frieze, against a rustic background. From the left, one holds a basket of grapes and other fruit, two are putting marrows, apples, pears and other fruit into a large net bag, held between them. The fourth crouches down from a seated position, her hands grasping leaves, and the last is stood, letting the wind blow leaves out from each hand. They wear loose robes coloured in accordance with their phases in the season.
The landscape behind them contains a watermill and surrounding buildings. At the left, the trees are heavy with fruit and the fields either green or ripe corn. At the right, the trees are barren, and the landscape hilly and more wintry. Soft blue-white patches of mist are visible in the foreground on the right. The passing of the season, and the fruit harvest, progresses in time from the left to the right.
By that time, the first fields were being ploughed in preparation for the following year.
Before the nineteenth century, when many farms either concentrated on sheep and arable, or on the raising of cattle, their economies were contrasting. The arable farmer was committed to labour-intensive work and investment throughout the year, with any cash return occurring once the harvest had been sold. Livestock farmers had lower labour requirements for much of the year, with their peak demand during Spring calving, and could spread the sale of animals more evenly over the year, with more immediate returns on their investment. This also enabled those involved in livestock farming to have more free time to engage in crafts and other sidelines.
今年的新款 MacBook Pro 确实「火出圈」，不过不是因为产品本身挤爆牙膏，而是因为在发布前大半个月就被人开箱「测评」，堪称苹果史上最严重泄露事件。
但真正把产品拿到手上，又发现今年的 MacBook Pro 还是熟悉的配方：最大的更新是芯片，外观几乎无肉眼可见更新，连包装盒都不带换的……
所以这又会是一篇老生常谈的 MacBook Pro 性能测评文章？不全是，除了性能和使用场景，我们还想聊一聊这颗 M4 芯片的特别之处。
我们手上的全新 14、16 寸 MacBook Pro 配置为 14 核 CPU 核 20 核 GPU 的满血版 M4 Pro 芯片，运行内存 48GB，存储 2TB 的版本。
所以，M4 Pro 有多强？跑分虽然不代表一切，但是也是一种将性能量化的方式，可以直观的和之前的产品分一个高下。
先说结论：CPU 不管是单核还是多核跑分，都是仅次于 M4 Max 之下的水准，不过 GPU 核心数量的差距摆在这里，GPU Metal 跑分追赶 Max 和 Ultra 系比较吃力，比较接近的水平是 M1 Max。
对比上一代 M3 Pro，M4 Pro 在 CPU 和 GPU 都多了两个核心，CPU 单核提升了 26%，多核甚至提升了 48% ， GPU 也有了 40% 的提升。
如果要说 MacBook Pro 上一个「鲤鱼跃龙门」的时刻，恐怕是 3 年前的 M1 Max 亮相，将移动端的 MacBook Pro，拉到了桌面级别生产力。
所以我很好奇，全新的 M4 Pro MacBook Pro 和这座高峰比一比，究竟鹿死谁手？
▲ 隔了 3 代外观几乎一模一样
需要指出的是，我们找来的这台 16 寸的 M1 Max MacBook Pro 运行内存是更高的 64GB，系统版本为 macOS 13，由于一些客观原因无法做到所有变量保持一致，因此以下的场景比对仅供参考。
值得一提的是，往年只有 Max 机型才独享的「高性能」模式，今年也下放到 Pro 芯片，能够让 MacBook Pro 的风扇以更高速度运行，对以上跑分场景影响不大，在视频和模型渲染的测试中，两台机器的发热也极其克制，风扇没有运转。
实际测试，达芬奇渲染一段 30 分钟 H.265 编码 4K 25 帧的视频，这在日常视频工作中已经属于比较重度的场景，M1 Max 渲染时长 10 分 16 秒，M4 Pro 则花了 14 分 20 秒完成。
而在 Blender 测试中，M4 Pro 反败为胜。即使是用 GPU 渲染，同一个「冰川」场景的单张图像，M4 Pro 仅渲染了 3 分钟出头，而 M1 Max 渲染了 4 分 20 秒。
▲ M4 MacBook Pro 的 Blender 渲染图
原本用上面这台 M1 Max MacBook Pro 的剪辑小伙伴也试用了全新的 14 寸 M4 Pro MacBook Pro，剪了 5 分钟片后他就立马跟我说：感觉电脑快了。
不过一个下午过去，他又表示，其实差别不太大。
在导入素材方面，以往的 M1 Max 在拖入具有非常多文件夹素材的时候，不能很快将素材的预览图显示完成，而 M4 Pro 基本能做到秒速预览。
还有一处提升是视频变速。在 DaVinci 上对素材进行变速处理后，如果设备性能跟不上，一般在时间轴中的实时预览都会出现卡顿，需要先进行渲染才能正常查看变速效果。
而 M4 Pro 和 M1 Max 即使进行了变速，也能大体流畅地在时间轴实时预览，前者效果要比后者更好，更有助于剪辑直接在时间轴调整效果。
至于渲染环节，他也体感和 M1 Max 大差不差，和我们的场景测试结果吻合。
我问了他一个更简单直接的问题：那你会打算换这台来用吗？他思考了一下，觉得没必要，特别是在运行内存不够高的情况下。
看来，苹果还是「等级森严」，要想彻底打败 M1 Max，或许还得看 M5 Pro。
M4 Pro 在少了 12 个 GPU 核心的情况下战了个平局，M4 Max 更能赢得不费吹灰之力。根据苹果官网数据，在 Redshift 3D 渲染环境中，M4 Max 速度是 M1 Max MacBook Pro 的 3 倍以上，重度视频处理也有 1.5 倍的速度提升。
除了处理器性能，新款 MacBook Pro 还有几个对各种生产场景有所影响的变化。
机身的接口都升级成了雷雳 5，数据传输速度高达 120Gb/s，不过即使是雷雳 4 的 40Gb/s 速度，也已经是快到溢出的速度，能够跑满的场景并不多见。
至于电池续航，那自然是 M 系处理器的强项。官网数据 M4 Pro 的续航能够坚持 24 小时，实际测试，7 个小时内渲染了三次视频、一次 Blender，用 AI 生了几张图后，电池还有一半左右的电。
整整一天的续航表现，加上 ARM 芯片不需要插电也能解锁完整的性能释放，你完全可以把 MacBook Pro 带到办公室之外的地方继续狂飙生产力。
为了能让你在各种地方都能自在工作，新款 MacBook Pro 显示屏 HDR 峰值亮度高达 1600 尼特，SDR 内容在明亮光线下也能正常显示，加上新增可选的纳米纹理选项，实测即使在大太阳下，MacBook Pro 上的内容都是肉眼可见清晰，也无惧炫光。
不过，如果办公环境主要是在室内，不管是我，还是视频组的小伙伴，都还是推荐观感更通透的标准显示屏，显示对比度也更高，还能省下 1100 元，拿这笔钱加 400 元又能升级运行内存或者存储空间了。
M4 Pro 这么强悍的性能，难道还是只能用来剪视频？下面就进入大家更喜闻乐见的测试环节——游戏。
如果你在社交平台上谈论 Mac 打游戏的可能性，相信很快评论区就会出现这样一张梗图：
不知道你有没有感觉，这张图在网上出现的频率越来越高了，背后的原因或许是因为，不管是苹果还是厂商，还是我们消费者用户，都在加速探索 Mac 打游戏的可能性。
让 Mac 成为游戏本这件事，苹果是认真的。去年的 M3 系列，苹果的升级重点放在了图形性能上，硬件支持加速光追，还给当时的 macOS 配备了游戏模式。
那么，时隔一年的 M4 Pro，游戏表现怎么样？
今年发行的《哈迪斯 2》在近期适配了 Apple Silicon 的原生版本，最高画质能够以每秒 120 帧流运行，显示效果非常惊艳，即使是打斗的场景也没有丝毫卡顿和延迟。
大作《博德之门 3》跑起来就没这么轻松了，3.5K 画质下，MacBook Pro 基本能稳定在 25 帧每秒下运行，不过很快机身就会变成「烤盘」。
经典的 Mac（测试）游戏《古墓丽影：暗影》未适配 ARM 架构，因此 M4 MacBook Pro 需要靠转译运行，机身也很快发烫，玩五分钟就能听到风扇声，但是总体也是流畅， 帧率在 60-80 帧每秒浮动。
而得益于 M3 加入的硬件光追能力，《古墓丽影》的光线效果还不错。
当然，性能已经不是掣肘 Mac 打游戏的主要问题，游戏生态才是更大的短板。
去年我们测试 M3 MacBook Pro 时，200 多款游戏中，只有 50 多款适配了 Mac。今年的数据有所变化，但是比例还是大差不差：游戏库 452 款游戏，只有 109 款支持 Mac，其中 2024 年推出的游戏有 10 款。
明年，《赛博朋克 2077》《刺客信条：影》等人气更高的 3A 大作也将登陆 Mac 平台。
除了图形性能，今年的 M4 系列还有一个重点——AI 性能。根据苹果官方的说法，M4 全系的神经引擎都能提供两倍于 M3 的 AI 算力，并且 M4 Mac 也全系升杯 16GB 运行内存起步。
但神经引擎，或者说 NPU 的性能，并不代表实际体验中的 AI 能力，我们还是需要回到当下的 AI 场景中进行实际体验。
在一些内容创作的场景，不管是 Adobe、DaVinci，还是苹果自己的 Final Cut Pro，其实已经集成了不少 AI 功能。AI 技术也催生了一些从前不存在的编辑效果和流程，比如视频超分。
Topaz AI 就是近几年兴起的编辑平台，能够利用设备的 AI 性能，实现视频分辨率和帧率的提升，以及降噪、消抖的效果。只不过这个软件非常吃性能，大部分电脑渲染速度奇慢。
同一个 4K 50 帧的 10 秒钟视频，提升到 8K 画质并且进行 H.265 转码，M1 Max 用了 7 分 38 秒，M4 Pro 快了半分钟不到，用时 7 分 11 秒。
这个测试也是很少有地让两款机器风扇高速运转，因此我尝试关闭 M4 Pro 的高性能模式进行，风扇声音确实小了很多，但与之对应，生成速度也慢了二十秒左右。
至于在本地部署文生图 AI 模型 Stable Diffusion 的平台 Diffuser，同样的规格、指令，如果只靠神经引擎生图，M4 Pro 用时 9 秒就能完成生图，而 M1 Max 耗时 88 秒，几乎用了 10 倍的时间。
但如果是 GPU + 神经网络引擎双管齐下，M4 Pro 生成反而更慢，用时 13 秒，而 M1 Max 更强的 GPU 性能在这里得以体现，进步神速来到 15 秒。
可以说，在 AI 环境下，M4 Pro 更强的神经引擎确实弥补了图形性能不足的短板，只是当下更常见的是混合场景，图形性能也是重要的一环。
而对于有着更强 GPU 和神经引擎性能的 M4 Max 来说，「AI 电脑」的定义，已经不仅仅只是「用 AI」，甚至包括了「造 AI」：苹果直接注明，M4 Max 的 MacBook Pro 可以与拥有千亿参数的大语言模型进行交互。
第三方本地大模型运行平台 LM Studio 表示，凭借 M4 Max、最高 128GB 运行内存和高达 546GB/s 的内存带宽，MacBook Pro 能够支持本地运行 2000 亿参数的大模型。
虽然在 AI 开发和应用上慢人一步，但苹果对硬件的 AI 性能确实毫不含糊。除了「剪片本」「设计本」「音频本」之外，以后的 MacBook Pro 说不定还能再贴上一个「大模型」本的标签。
2020 年，苹果宣布 Mac 产品向自研芯片过渡，次年更是推出了 M1 Pro、M1 Max、M1 Ultra 等一系列性能爆表的处理器。2021 年第四季度，Mac 销量创下历史记录。
相比起英特尔向 M1 的飞跃，M2、M3 可以说平淡了不少，性能和产品力提升都在预期之内，所以这两年每次 Mac 更新，评论区都少不了那句「M1 还能再战几年」。
虽然每次都比上一代强那么一点，但如果将 3 代的更新累计起来，你会发现，今年的 M4 系列和 M1 系列对比，仿佛当年 M1 和英特尔的对比。
所以 M4 还有一个新的使命：「拔钉子」，用了 3-4 年，M1 刚好也开始进入换新周期，用户升级到 M4，在各个方面基本都能感受到倍级提升，特别在图形性能的方面。
加上全系 16GB 起步的运行存储加量不加价，这一代 Mac，尤其是入门款，有望成为新的「钉子户」。
只是苹果现在的对手，也不再只有自己。
虽然面对最新的 M4，设计对标 M2 的高通骁龙 X Elite 有点不够看，但这颗芯片更多只是起到一个先锋的作用，未来的高通 X 系 PC 芯片，差距只会和 Apple Silicon 越来越小，今年的手机端芯片已经初见端倪。
未来的高通，一定也会推出自己的「Pro」「Max」「Ultra」系列，开启全面追赶，毕竟从骁龙 8cx Gen 3 到骁龙 X Elite，高通只走了 2 年的时间。苹果 M1 系列吃到至今的红利，也会有到头的一天。
至于「老朋友」英特尔，全新的 Lunar Lake 芯片也证明了 x86 这个传统平台，同样具有实现低能耗高性能的潜力。
而负责造设备的 OEM 厂商，也早已在形态上实现了超越：华为能推出 MacBook Air 还要轻半斤的轻薄本，荣耀甚至能将一块独立显卡塞入 2 千克不到的机身。
从 M4 上，我们能看到苹果的更多想法，试图将 Mac 产品的触角延伸更多方面，而不只是「剪视频」：拉到满级的 AI 性能，甚至能用来当大模型开发机的真·AI PC；流畅运行 3A 大作，音画素质还处于顶级的游戏本……
不止于此，彭博社爆料，2026 年的 M6 MacBook Pro，有望采用全新的轻薄设计，以及 OLED 显示技术。
这看起来确实符合今年的苹果哲学：M4 iPad Pro 成为史上最薄的苹果产品，M4 Mac mini 也瘦身成功，刚好，全都是「M4」。
与此相对， M4 MacBook Pro 的更新显得很平淡，但每一步都踏在了正确的方向上；MacBook Pro 的未来还未至，但 M4 或许就是开启未来的钥匙。
#欢迎关注爱范儿官方微信公众号：爱范儿（微信号：ifanr），更多精彩内容第一时间为您奉上。
In the more northerly latitudes, grass that’s essential for cattle to graze grows little during the winter months. Farmers keeping cattle therefore have to provide alternative feed for their livestock for several months each year. This can include root crops such as brassica varieties including turnips and swedes (also known as rutabaga), but the most widespread is cut and dried grass as hay.
Where climate and day-length are suitable, as in much of England and France, dedicated hay meadows can provide two harvests each year. Left ungrazed through the winter, the first is normally ready to mow in the late Spring, and when there’s sufficient rainfall during the early summer, a second hay harvest can be obtained before the weather deteriorates in the early autumn. The mowing of hay has also been known as math, and mowing a second time is thus the aftermath or lattermath.
The essential requirement for hay is that it’s dried thoroughly, or it will rot over time and become unusable as fodder. In the centuries before mechanisation during the nineteenth century, this process was described as: first mow the grass, “scatter it about, gather it in windrows, cock it overnight, scatter it about, windrow it, cock it, and so on to the stack and stack it”. (Fussell) Those steps are shown well in paintings.
The companion to Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting of the grain harvest, The Hay Harvest from 1565 shows all stages in progress. In the left foreground a man is beating the blade on his scythe to sharpen it ready for mowing. Three women are striding towards him with the rakes they use to scatter and gather the mown hay. Behind them, in the valley, others are gathering the hay into small stacks or cocks, where it continues to dry before being loaded onto the hay wagon to be taken back to the farm.
At the right are wicker baskets containing other crops, including what appear to be peas or beans, together with a red fruit.
Ferdinand Hodler’s marvellous Mower from about 1898 is seen sharpening the blade on his heavy scythe using a whetstone, as the sun rises behind and to the left.
The couple in Jules Bastien-Lepage’s Haymakers from 1877 are enjoying a short break from their labours, with the mown hay behind them still scattered to dry, before it can be raked into cocks.
Henri-Jean Martin painted Summer, or Mowers in 1903, as mechanisation was spreading across Europe. Several small clusters of men are mowing the hay in this meadow with their scythes, as three young women are dancing in a ring on the bed of flowers, and another sits nursing an infant.
Henry Moret’s Haymaking in Brittany from 1906 shows a smaller team busy mowing and raking on steeper ground.
In Camille Pissarro’s Divisionist painting of Haymaking, Éragny from the summer of 1887, a team of women are raking the cocks into haystacks.
Women in this hay meadow in Ukraine are raking in the harvest to be transported by a hay wain drawn by a pair of oxen, as painted in Mykola Pymonenko’s undated Haymaking.
In Jean-François Millet’s Haystacks: Autumn from about 1874, the harvest has been gathered, and three huge haystacks dominate the canvas. At the foot of one of them, a shepherd leans on his staff, resting from his labours as his flock grazes on the stubble.
Surplus hay was also a good cash crop for those who could get it transported to towns and cities. Along the east coast of England, barges were filled with hay then taken to London for sale. Much of the land in the county of Middlesex, to the west of London, was devoted to producing hay to feed horses in the city.
Robert Bevan’s painting of Hay Carts, Cumberland Market from 1915 is a view of London’s last hay market, near to the artist’s studio. By this time, the bales shown were made by mechanical baling machines and brought to London by barge.
In the next article in this series, I’ll look at a novel crop that soon became the staple food for many, the potato.
The first twenty or so chapters of Miguel de Cervantes’ groundbreaking modern novel Don Quixote consist of a series of largely self-contained comic misadventures. After the knight and his long-suffering squire Sancho Panza release a group of convicts, they fear for their safety, so head for the mountains. Once there, events become more interrelated and complex, presenting even greater challenges to those who tried to paint them in standalone works, rather than illustrations accompanying the text.
The pair find a hoard of gold coins apparently abandoned with a notebook in a travel bag. Then Don Quixote catches a glimpse of a man leaping around the bushes half-naked, and suspects that he’s the owner of the bag and its coins. A little way around the hillside, they find a dead mule whose owner they think had carried that bag.
This scene must have fascinated the French artist Honoré Daumier, who painted a series of oil sketches of it in about 1867.
In the first, the knight leads his squire towards the dead mule.
This rough oil sketch shows them drawing even closer.
Sancho Panza and Don Quixote in the Sierra is more generic, and omits the dead mule altogether.
A little later, Sancho Panza’s donkey is stolen, so the knight dispatches him on his own horse Rocinante to obtain three replacement donkeys, and deliver a letter to the Lady Dulcinea, Quixote’s semi-imaginary ‘lady’ of his chivalric quests. Meanwhile, the knight laments and feigns madness for the lady. Panza meets their village priest and barber, and they agree to deceive Quixote in a bid to persuade him to return to the village for his madness to be treated.
As the three head back towards Don Quixote, they meet Dorotea, who had previously been tricked and seduced. She agrees to dress up as a fine lady and pose as Princess Micomicona, who purports to have come all the way from Guinea to ask a boon of the knight.
Pedro González Bolívar’s painting of The Introduction of Dorotea to Don Quixote from 1881 shows their meeting. Without that background information, this would prove impossible to read.
Don Quixote is persuaded to leave the mountains and return home with them, but that’s the start of another series of misadventures. During these, Dorotea’s true identity is revealed, and at dinner Don Quixote gives a long and impassioned speech in which he argues surprisingly rationally in favour of the pre-eminence of arms over learning.
This is recorded in Manuel García Hispaleto’s painting of Don Quixote’s Speech of Arms and Letters from 1884. Sancho Panza stands immediately behind the knight, at the head of the table, on the right. Seated along the table’s length are a man who has just arrived from Algiers with a Moorish woman, the village priest, and others.
Don Quixote’s madness only continues, and eventually he has to be bundled into an oxcart and taken home.
On a Sunday when all the locals are out in the square, the oxcart bearing Don Quixote enters his village at noon, as shown in Hippolyte Lecomte’s undated Don Quixote’s Homecoming. At the left, Don Quixote’s niece or housekeeper holds her hands up in horror at his condition. To the left of the cart are the priest and barber, still mounted. Sancho Panza is riding his donkey, and has been greeted by his wife and their children, who are more interested in how many fine skirts he brought back for her, and how many pairs of shoes for their children.
The priest and barber leave Don Quixote alone to recover for a month after their return, then reassess him, as shown by Miguel Jadraque in this Visit of the Priest and Barber to Don Quixote from 1880. Don Quixote is becoming animated with them as he sits up in bed. In the left background are the knight’s niece and housekeeper, praying in vain for his recovery.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza then leave on their third sally, which first takes them on a futile mission to El Toboso in quest of the Lady Dulcinea. After that, they head towards the city of Saragossa, and meet a cart full of players in costume, who create mayhem.
Carlos Vásquez Úbeda shows this encounter in his undated painting of Don Quixote. At this stage, the pair are still on their mounts, but shortly afterwards a clown causes Rocinante to bolt and throw Don Quixote, and one of the other players rides off on the squire’s donkey. For once, Sancho manages to persuade his master not to retaliate, and they continue on their way without coming to grief.
Later, they meet a group from a village, and are invited to attend a wedding there the following day.
The wedding brings an elaborate deception in which the bride’s first suitor appears to impale himself on his own sword so that he can marry the bride as his dying wish, but then miraculously comes back to life, to cheat the groom from marrying the bride as had been expected. Manuel García Hispaleto’s painting of The Marriage of Basilio and Quiteria from 1881 shows the priest officiating in the centre, as the bride to the right is married to the dying suitor, who is supported by Don Quixote with his lance. The groom stands at the front of the tent at the right, staring in disbelief at what’s going on.
The newlyweds entertain Don Quixote and Sancho Panza for three days, enabling them to visit the Cave of Montesinos and the Lakes of Ruidera nearby. Gustave Doré, whose illustrations for the whole book have been used by others as the basis for further illustrated editions, painted this non-narrative scene of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Entertained by Basil and Quiteria in about 1863.
In the middle of Cervantes’ second book of Don Quixote, the knight and his squire Sancho Panza become guests of a Duke and Duchess who had already read Cervantes’ first book, and set out to trick the pair into further comical misadventures. Soon after their arrival, the Duke’s chaplain asserts that Don Quixote isn’t a knight errant at all, causing the knight to deliver a searing riposte.
Out of the blue, maids arrive to wash and lather the knight’s beard, and that of the Duke, in a procedure that defuses a tense situation by transforming it into the absurd. Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro’s painting of Don Quijote in the Duke’s House from 1878 shows this bizarre moment, with the rotund figure of Sancho Panza at the left, the gaunt Don Quixote in the centre, and the Duke and Duchess seated at the right, in obvious amusement.
Although Cervantes had completed Don Quixote in 1615, and it quickly became popular across Europe, it appears to have been painted infrequently before the nineteenth century. Only Valero Iriarte seems to have painted its comical adventure stories in the previous century. Although Eugène Delacroix painted the non-narrative Don Quixote in his Library in 1824, Cervantes’ novel was generally ignored by the major narrative artists of the nineteenth century, who continued depicting mostly classical myth.
These paintings demonstrate how modern fiction can form the basis for successful narrative painting, even though that has remained unusual.
Telling a story in a painting intended to be viewed independently of its literary account requires great skill. Illustrations have the advantage that they’re going to be seen alongside the words, but a narrative painting could be exhibited almost anywhere. The most popular solution is to depict the best-known myths and legends, typically from classical times, stories that all educated viewers should be familiar with.
Painting a modern novel is even more of a challenge, making those showing Miguel de Cervantes’ epic Don Quixote, published in 1605 and 1615, among the boldest of all narrative paintings. A few years ago I published a long series of summaries of the book accompanied by paintings and illustrations. This weekend I look at just the former, from outside the immediate context of the literary account, considering whether they work as narrative paintings.
Cervantes himself spent at least two periods in prison, and it’s claimed that he started work on Don Quixote during the second of those. Mariano de la Roca’s painting of Miguel de Cervantes imagining El Quixote from 1858 may be as fictitious as the book, but reveals a clear vision of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza. Their mounts are caricatured, but Don Quixote is fully detailed complete with the barber’s basin he wears as a helmet.
Nils Kreuger’s portrait of Don Quixote’s Horse Rocinante from 1911 is non-narrative, but nevertheless a fine painting, with the knight seated against the base of a tree and staring into the distance.
Quixote’s first, solo and briefest sally takes him to an inn, where he insists the innkeeper dubs him as a knight, as depicted by Valero Iriarte, who is now known almost exclusively for his paintings of this book.
Iriarte’s first scene of Don Quixote at the Inn (c 1720) shows one of the earliest comic events in the book, in which the landlord pours wine into a hollowed-out length of cane to enable the aspiring knight to drink through his helmet. Immediately beforehand, the two women had fed him, as his hands had been fully occupied in holding up his cardboard visor. To anyone familiar with the opening chapters of Cervantes’ book, this would have been instantly recognisable.
Iriarte’s second scene is set inside the inn, with Don Quixote Dubbed a Knight (c 1720). Quixote is on his knees ready for the ceremony, while the fat innkeeper stands behind with his back to the viewer, busy rehearsing his reading. To the left of Quixote is a young lad holding a candle, and a prostitute is holding the knight’s lance as she’s negotiating with her next customer, to the right. Again, Iriarte tells the story true to Cervantes’ account, and it’s readily recognisable.
After a couple of tragi-comic adventures, Don Quixote returns home battered and bruised.
One of his neighbours came past with a donkey, on which the knight was placed. To avoid any embarrassment, they don’t enter the village until after dark. Wilhelm Marstrand’s undated painting captures the sense of defeat during Don Quixote’s First Ride Home.
Don Quixote recruits Sancho Panza to be his squire during the fortnight he spends at home after that first sally. The pair then ride out together and engage in the most famous of their adventures, when Quixote attacks a windmill, convinced that it’s a giant.
José Moreno’s painting of Don Quixote and the Windmills from about 1900 portrays the climax perfectly, as the knight and his charger are hoisted aloft by one of the windmill’s sails, as it rotates with the wind.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza then endure further misadventures, during which the knight loses part of his helmet and some of his left ear. They accept the hospitality of some goatherds for the night, and the following morning attend the burial of a local scholar whose death resulted from his unrequited love for a young shepherdess. She appears at the burial and denies responsibility, as painted by Cecilio Pla and Valero Iriarte.
Pla’s Marcela the Shepherdess from 1905 shows her standing defiantly above the scholar’s grave.
Valero Iriarte’s Story of Shepherds Grisóstomo and Marcela (c 1701-44) is overambitious in its detail. The shepherdess stands at the far right, well away from the burial taking place at the far left. Between them are Sancho Panza and Don Quixote, engaged in conversation.
The pair become involved in further unfortunate incidents, culminating in Don Quixote leaving an inn without paying for their accommodation. The knight then makes another spectacular error when he mistakes flocks of sheep for armies about to join in battle, a story that sticks in the mind.
As Johann Baptist Zwecker shows in his painting of Don Quixote from 1854, the knight then charges at the armies of sheep with his lance, to the annoyance of the drovers, who retaliate by knocking out several of his teeth with their slingshot.
A turning point in this second sally occurs when the pair free a dozen convicts who turn on them by bombarding them with rocks, then run away. Fearing that they are in danger, the knight and his squire ride off to hide in the mountains, as shown below in Adrien Demont’s painting of Don Quixote from 1893.
Tomorrow I’ll show paintings of what happened next.
No matter what your background, religion or culture, there’s one universal cause for feasting and celebration, a wedding. One of the great challenges for the figurative painter, weddings are the central feature in three classical myths and one religious story examined in this article; tomorrow’s sequel looks at the depiction of less famous, personal weddings.
Of the three great mythical weddings, the first in chronological order was that of Hippodame and Pirithous, which brought an end to the dominance of centaurs on earth, the Centauromachy. This was celebrated in prominent places: the subsequent battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs was shown in sculpture on the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and on the Parthenon at Athens. It was Ovid, though, who chose to tell this story in the context of the Trojan War.
When Pirithous married Hippodame, the couple invited centaurs to the feast. Unfortunately, passions of the centaur Eurytus became inflamed by drink and lust for the bride, and he carried off Hippodame by her hair. The other centaurs followed suit by each seizing a woman of their choice, turning the wedding feast into utter chaos, like a city being sacked. Theseus castigated Eurytus and rescued the bride, so the centaur attacked him. Theseus responded by throwing a huge wine krater at Eurytus, killing him. The centaurs then started throwing goblets and crockery, and the battle escalated from there.
Piero di Cosimo’s The Fight between Lapiths and Centaurs (1500-15) is my favourite among the earlier paintings of the ultimate wedding feast gone wrong. In the centre foreground, Hylonome embraces and kisses the dying Cyllarus, a huge arrow-like spear resting underneath them. Immediately behind them, on the large carpets laid out for the wedding feast, centaurs are still abducting women. All around are scenes of pitched and bloody battles, with eyes being gouged out, and Lapiths and Centaurs wielding clubs and other weapons at one another. This is definitely a wedding to remember, if you survived it.
Towards the end of his life, Peter Paul Rubens painted The Rape of Hippodame (1636-38). At the right, Eurytus is trying to carry off Hippodame, the bride, with Theseus just about to rescue her from the centaur’s back. At the left, Lapiths are attacking with their weapons, and behind them another centaur is trying to abduct a woman.
The next wedding to be grateful you missed was that between the great hero Perseus and the princess whom he rescued from Cetus the sea monster. Andromeda’s parents were so delighted at their daughter’s rescue that she, who had already been promised in marriage to Phineus, was quickly married instead to Perseus. At the wedding feast, Phineus and his friends were understandably rather miffed, and a violent quarrel broke out between them and Perseus. As happens at the most memorable of weddings, this turned seriously nasty when weapons came out and bodies started to fall. The solution for Perseus was to brandish the head of Medusa and turn Phineus and his friends into cold statuary.
Annibale Carracci and Domenichino combined their talents in painting this fresco of Perseus and Phineas (1604-06) in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. As Perseus stands in the centre brandishing the Gorgon’s face towards his attackers, Andromeda and her parents shelter behind, shielding their eyes for safety.
Surprisingly few paintings of this wedding make reference to the goddess Minerva’s protection of Perseus, which is clearly expressed in Jean-Marc Nattier’s undated painting of Perseus, Under the Protection of Minerva, Turns Phineus to Stone by Brandishing the Head of Medusa. The goddess, Perseus’ half-sister, is sat on a cloud to the right of and behind the hero. She wears her distinctive helmet, grips her spear, and her left hand holds the Aegis, providing narrative closure.
Perseus points his weapons away from himself and Minerva, and is looking up towards the goddess. In the foreground, one of Phineus’ party seems to be sorting through the silverware, perhaps intending to make off with it. The happy couple picked themselves up from the bodies, statues and debris, and moved on. Perseus gave thanks to Minerva for her support and the loan of her shield, by the votive offering of Medusa’s head, which Minerva had set into her shield, turning it into the Aegis.
The wedding of Thetis, sea nymph and spinster of this parish, and Peleus, king of Phthia and bachelor of that parish, was celebrated with a great feast on Mount Pelion attended by most of the gods. The happy couple were given many gifts by the gods, but one, Eris the goddess of discord, had not been invited. As an act of spite at her exclusion, she threw a golden apple ‘of discord’ into the middle of the goddesses, to be given as a reward to ‘the fairest’.
This is Jacob Jordaens’ The Golden Apple of Discord from 1633, based on a brilliant oil sketch by Rubens. The facially discordant Eris, seen in midair behind the deities, has just made her gift of the golden apple, which is at the centre of the grasping hands, above the table. At the left, Minerva (Pallas Athene) reaches forward for it. In front of her, Venus, her son Cupid at her knee, points to herself as the goddess most deserving of the apple. On the other side of the table, Juno reaches her hand out for it too. This sets up the Judgement of Paris, and the rest is legendary.
For once it’s the most modern version, painted by Edward Burne-Jones as The Feast of Peleus in 1872-81, that sticks most closely to the story. In a composition based on classical representations of the Last Supper, he brings Eris in at the far right, her golden apple still concealed. Every head has turned towards her, apart from that of the centaur behind her right wing. Even the three Fates, in the left foreground, have paused momentarily in their work.
This wedding banquet set up the beauty contest between Juno, Venus and Minerva in the Judgement of Paris. Venus won following her bribe promising Paris the most beautiful woman in the world, who happened at the time to be married to King Menelaus of Sparta. After Paris abducted Helen to Troy, the Greeks united to wage war against Troy, eventually capturing and destroying the city.
In 1562, Paolo Veronese was commissioned to paint a large work for the refectory of the Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Its central narrative is an episode of the ministry of Christ as recorded in the gospels: Christ and his disciples were invited to a wedding feast in Cana, Galilee. Towards its end, the wine started to run out, and he was asked what they should do. He directed servants to fill jugs with water, which he then miraculously turned into wine.
This huge canvas shows Christ, distinguished by his halo, at the centre of his disciples, with the Virgin Mary (also with halo) at his right, and sundry disciples arrayed along that side of the tables. The wedding group is at the far left of the party.
At the far right of the canvas, wine is shown being poured from a large container, a clear cue to the gospel narrative.
There’s also a great deal of other activity in every part of the painting. On the balcony behind Christ there are scenes of the butchery of meat, which is generally claimed to be lamb and symbolic of Christ’s future death as a sacrifice for mankind, as the ‘Lamb of God’, although there are no visual clues to support that interpretation. In the musicians below, and other guests, it is claimed that there are portraits of artists, including Veronese himself, and Titian. Other important figures who are supposed to be shown include Eleanor of Austria, Francis I of France, Mary I of England, Suleiman the Magnificent, and Emperor Charles V.
Finally, I turn to one of many weddings in more modern European literature.
The eighth story told on the fifth day of Boccaccio’s Decameron concerns the misfortunes of one Nastagio Degli Onesti, involving one ghost killing and dismembering the ghost of a woman, a strange and grisly tale told in a series of four panels by Botticelli. The fourth and last shows the hero Nastagio’s wedding, the bride and her women sitting to the left, and the men to the right, in formal symmetry. The groom is sat on the other side of the same table as the bride.
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