有声英语故事连载：《名人传记》之乔布斯 第92期

故事连载

 

Apple’s ethos, defined by that Think Different slogan,

苹果“非同凡想”的企业精神

turned out to be a remarkably valuable business philosophy.

是一种很有价值的经营理念

It had helped the company reinvent computing and retailing,

它帮助公司彻底改造了计算机行业和零售业

and next it would take Apple to yet another revolutionary endeavour.

并即将带领苹果走向另一个革命性的领域

Steve Jobs was one of those people who recognized that, in the digital age, content would be key.

史蒂夫·乔布斯注意到 在数字化时代 丰富的内容至关重要

The iPod was designed to be a way to synchronise your music

iPod的设计理念

from your computer to get it into your pocket.

是要把你电脑里的音乐放进你的口袋

 

It was after the success of the iPod that Apple said there’s a market for us to sell music,

iPod取得成功后 苹果发现它可以在音乐市场也占有一席之地

but that was not the original plan.

但这不在原本的计划内

While Jobs needed music for the iPod,

当乔布斯需要为iPod创建音乐市场时

the music industry had a problem of its own.

唱片工业本身正面临着难题

The rise of file-sharing websites like Napster was threatening the way the industry made money.

Napster等文件共享网站的崛起 对这个行业产生了莫大的威胁

So you went from a world in which you had to go buy stuff in a store

在这个时代 人们已经不再需要花钱去店里买唱片了

to a world in which you had this cloud of music

网络上海量的共享资源

that was, in effect, an unlimited source of free music,

就是一个免费的无限量音乐库

which was a very threatening idea to the music industry.

这对唱片公司来说如同晴天霹雳

Faced with this crisis, the record industry had tried to close Napster down

面对这样的困境 唱片公司试图叫停Napster

and sue people who downloaded music for free.

并指控那些免费下载音乐的用户

 

They were alarmed by Apple’s iPod.

但iPod却给他们带来了更大的危机感

The record labels were very unhappy with that and felt that,

唱片厂商开始感到恐慌

only because Napster was hard to use, could the music survive,

他们认为 由于Napster操作复杂 自己或许还能苟延残喘

and here was Apple coming out with a digital music product

但苹果推出的新数码产品简单易用

that was easy to use and was going to make it much more popular.

又成为了潮流所趋 是一个更大的威胁