????因生產藍牙耳機、音箱、健身腕帶等產品出名的Jawbone公司昨日又推出了一款最新的音箱。它的體格比Jawbone生產的其它兩款藍牙音箱都小，與它的老款——也就是同類最暢銷的Jambox音箱相比，尺寸只有它的一半，而且還有九種顏色可供選擇。這款小巧的藍牙音箱取名為Mini Jambox。它的材質和骨架由一整塊鋁合金制成，內置一塊續航時間10小時的電池。而且它的重量也很輕（只有9盎司重，大概只相當于兩塊好時巧克力的大小和重量），因此可以隨手塞到包里，帶到任何地方。

????這款Mini音箱與老款Jambox的價格持平，均為179美元。不過據這家公司稱，新款音量更足，而且音質更好。網上有關于這款音箱的評測基本上涵蓋了大家想知道的關于產品本身的一切內容。

????但是評測文章里可能注意不到一些更重要的事，也就是像Jawbone等這些有趣的公司到底是怎樣做到讓我們這些消費者購買他們的產品的。Jambox的產品開發負責人塔維斯?博加德說：“一款產品怎么才能適應人們的生活，這一點對我們來說和產品本身一樣重要。”

????當然，要想讓一款產品適應人們的生活遠遠不止是把它做得更小更輕這么簡單。雖然Jawbone公司聲稱Mini jambox比Jambox音箱的尺寸小了一半，但它的聲音范圍相差無幾。雖然Mini的確更小、更輕了，但其實并不顯著。它真正的優勢體現在更加微妙的地方，也就是非常擅于與其它設備進行無線連接。這可不是件小事。

????蘋果之所以取得了成功，一個重要原因就是每一種蘋果設備都很容易與另一種蘋果設備進行互聯。一旦你迷上了蘋果，基本上就難以脫身了。大家可以很輕易地利用MacBook筆記本調整iPhone的設置，或者與iPad共享一個文件，或者是把設備上的文件導到Apple TV上播放。這種能力才是蘋果生態系統的殺手锏，也是讓顧客迅速變成死忠果粉的原因。

????Jawbone之前的音箱產品在連接手機、平板和電腦時表現得也不錯。不過要想調整這些音箱的設置，必須得先把它連到一臺電腦上，然后聯入網絡，登錄該公司的網站，這套程序對于以無線為最大賣點的產品來說太繁瑣了。就在Mini音箱推出的同時，這家公司還同期推出了Jawbone移動應用來解決這個問題，同時它也給其它所有音樂服務提了個醒。

????Jawbone, the bluetooth headset, health band, and speaker company, came out with a new speaker yesterday. It's smaller than the two other speakers Jawbone already makes -- half as small, in fact, as its predecessor, the Jambox, which is the bestselling speaker in its category -- and it comes in a choice of nine colors. Made out of a solid piece of aluminum that's both skin and skeleton, the new speaker, called the Mini Jambox, has a built-in battery that lasts 10 hours, and it's light enough (9 oz., or roughly the size and weight of two Hershey bars) to throw into a bag and carry anywhere.

????Though the Mini costs as much ($179) as the first-generation Jambox, the company claims it "packs more volume" and has "even better audio clarity." There's the two-cent review -- pretty much all you need to know about the product itself.

????But to stop there misses the point of something greater that Jawbone -- and all interesting companies that make things in the hopes that we, the consumer, will buy them -- is up to. Travis Bogard, who oversees product development at Jambox, put it like this: "How a product fits into your life is as important to us as the product itself."

????The challenge to get a product to fit into people's lives, of course, goes far beyond just making it smaller or more portable. In fact, though the company claims the Mini Jambox is about half the size as the original Jambox, its footprint is similar. The Mini is narrower and lighter, sure, but not dramatically so. Its real virtue is more subtle: It is incredibly good at connecting wirelessly to other machines. No trivial thing, that.

????A huge part of Apple's (AAPL) success has been due to how easy the company has made it to connect one of its devices to another. Once you get locked in to Apple you are, well, locked in. The ease with which one is able to adjust settings on your iPhone through your MacBook or share a file with your iPad, or maybe have it project on your television via Apple TV, is really the killer aspect of the Apple ecosystem, and the quality that keeps its customers so rabidly loyal.

????Jawbone's previous speakers were pretty good at connecting to phones, tablets, and laptops as well. But to adjust the settings of the speakers required plugging it into a computer, then connecting to the Internet and pulling up the company's website -- a cumbersome process for a product that's, in theory, all about wire-cutting. Along with the release of the Mini, Jawbone is releasing the Jawbone App, which is both a fix to this and a shot across the bow to every other music service.