歡呼吧果粉：蘋果也要走平價路線了？

For years, Apple customers would complain about the "Apple Tax" — the premium over similar products from other companies that you would have to pay for Apple's design and software. Apple stuff is premium, and increasingly, it's sold as a luxury product as well — think of the $20,000 gold Apple Watch.

一直以來，熱衷於蘋果公司產品的消費者們總為「蘋果稅」怨聲不迭——由於蘋果公司產品設計和軟體質量的優勢，你不得不付出比其他公司的類似產品更高的費用。蘋果公司的產品物美價高，乃至逐漸成為了一種奢侈品——想想價值2萬美元的蘋果金錶！

But Apple's announcement on Tuesday, in which it revealed a new low-cost iPad and upgraded the least-expensive iPhone, shows that Apple has started to compete on price as well. The tech industry should take note.

然而，本周二蘋果公司舉行了一個發布會，發布了一款價格低廉的新款平板電腦,並對較為廉價的蘋果手機進行了革新升級。這意味著蘋果公司加入了價格戰的領域。通信技術行業要多加註意了！

If Apple starts using its massive cash pile to undercut its competitors and deflate entire product categories, that's a big deal.

如果蘋果公司開始投入大量資金，用價格優勢削弱競爭對手，乃至讓各種電子產品經受一次價格大縮水，這就非同小可了。

On Tuesday, Apple dropped the price of a fine, fast, and big iPad to $330 — a price below similar devices from Samsung, Lenovo, and Microsoft. Apple already dominated the high-end tablet market, and just undercut many of its Android competitors.

在周二的發布會上，蘋果公司宣布某款性能優良，運行迅速，尺寸大氣的平板電腦的售價下降到了330美元——這一售價比三星、聯想、微軟等品牌同類產品的售價都要低。蘋果已經控制了高端平板電腦的銷售市場，也讓許多安卓系統的同類競爭者遭遇了釜底抽薪。

Apple's iPhone SE got an upgrade, bumping its default storage up from 16GB to 32GB. It's not a full refresh, but it shows that Apple is still giving love and attention to even its cheapest iPhone.

SE型號的蘋果手機獲得了升級，屢受病詬的16G小內存擴展到了32G。這並非脫胎換骨，不過這也說明，即使對自己最廉價的手機產品，蘋果公司仍會給予關愛和關注。

The low prices for these two updated device follow a trend that independent Apple analyst Neil Cybart noted last week: Apple "is making its products more accessible through lower pricing."

這兩種革新換代的產品價格都非常低廉，印證了獨立分析師Neil Cybart在上周說過的話：「蘋果『真努力通過低廉的價格靠近更多的消費者』。」

But a company valued as richly as Apple also needs to keep its margins high, and that's why it's also turning into a luxury brand at the same time — note that Apple's iPad Pro debuted at $600, higher than the iPad Air 2 it nominally replaced.

不過像蘋果公司這樣身價高昂的公司也需要保持自己的價格優勢，這就是為什麼蘋果同時也正在轉型成為一個奢侈品品牌——注意，首次與眾人見面的蘋果平板電腦iPad Pro售價為600美元，比其在名義上取代了的 iPad Air 2價格還要昂貴。