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.
一直以来，热衷于苹果公司产品的消费者们总为“苹果税”怨声不迭——由于苹果公司产品设计和软件质量的优势，你不得不付出比其他公司的类似产品更高的费用。苹果公司的产品物美价高，乃至逐渐成为了一种奢侈品——想想价值2万美元的苹果金表！

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，本周二苹果公司举行了一个发布会，发布了一款价格低廉的新款平板电脑,并对较为廉价的苹果手机进行了革新升级。这意味着苹果公司加入了价格战的领域。通信技术行业要多加注意了！

If Apple starts using its massive cash pile to undercut its competitors and deflate entire product categories, that's a big deal.
如果苹果公司开始投入大量资金，用价格优势削弱竞争对手，乃至让各种电子产品经受一次价格大缩水，这就非同小可了。

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.
在周二的发布会上，苹果公司宣布某款性能优良，运行迅速，尺寸大气的平板电脑的售价下降到了330美元——这一售价比三星、联想、微软等品牌同类产品的售价都要低。苹果已经控制了高端平板电脑的销售市场，也让许多安卓系统的同类竞争者遭遇了釜底抽薪。

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型号的苹果手机获得了升级，屡受病诟的16G小内存扩展到了32G。这并非脱胎换骨，不过这也说明，即使对自己最廉价的手机产品，苹果公司仍会给予关爱和关注。

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."
这两种革新换代的产品价格都非常低廉，印证了独立分析师Neil Cybart在上周说过的话：“苹果‘真努力通过低廉的价格靠近更多的消费者’。”

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. 
不过像苹果公司这样身价高昂的公司也需要保持自己的价格优势，这就是为什么苹果同时也正在转型成为一个奢侈品品牌——注意，首次与众人见面的苹果平板电脑iPad Pro售价为600美元，比其在名义上取代了的 iPad Air 2价格还要昂贵。

（翻译：小木）

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