乔布斯传 第537期:放养猫(9)

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After a lot of negotiating¹ with the record companies, he said,

在和一些唱片公司进行了很多轮谈判之后，他说：

"they were willing to do something with us to change the world."

“他们想加入我们，和我们一起改变世界。”

The iTunes Store would start with 200,000 tracks, and it would grow each day.

iTunes商店起初会有20万首歌曲，之后的每一天都会有新增曲目。

By using the store, he said, you can own your songs, burn them on CDs,

他还说，有了iTunes商店，你可以得到你想要的歌曲，把它们刻录成CD，

be assured² of the download quality, get a preview of a song before you download it,

不用担心质量问题，可以在下载之前试听曲目，

and use it with your iMovies and iDVDs to "make the soundtrack of your life."

还可以用iMovie和iDVD以这些歌曲为配乐“制作你自己的音乐大碟”。

The price? Just 99 cents, he said, less than a third of what a Starbucks latte cost.

价格如何？99美分。他说，还不到一杯星巴克拿铁咖啡价格的1/3。

Why was it worth it? Because to get the right song from Kazaa took about fifteen minutes, rather than a minute.

为什么花这个钱是值得的？因为要从Kazaa下载一首优质的歌曲需要15分钟，而iTunes只需要1分钟。

By spending an hour of your time to save about four dollars, he calculated³, "you're working for under the minimum⁴ wage!"

为了省4美元而花费整整1个小时，他说：“你赚得比最低时薪还要低！”

And one more thing... "With iTunes, it's not stealing anymore. It's good karma."

还有...“用iTunes下载歌曲，不再偷窃。你种下的是善因。”

Clapping the loudest for that line were the heads of the record labels in the front row,

最热烈的掌声来自观众席的前排，几大唱片公司的老板都坐在那里，

including Doug Morris sitting next to Jimmy Iovine, in his usual baseball cap, and the whole crowd from Warner Music.

包括道格·莫里斯，他的旁边是戴着棒球帽的吉米·约维内，还有华纳音乐的所有高层。

Eddy⁵ Cue⁶, who was in charge of the store, predicted that Apple would sell a million songs in six months.

负责iTunes商店的埃迪·库埃预计，苹果将在未来6个月销售100万首歌曲。

Instead the iTunes Store sold a million songs in six days.

但事实上，iTunes商店在6天内就卖掉了100万首。

"This will go down in history as a turning point for the music industry," Jobs declared.

乔布斯宣告：“这将作为音乐行业的一个转折点被载入史册。”

1 negotiating   

n. 谈判 动词negotiate的现在分词

参考例句：

• They were coerced into negotiating a settlement. 他们被迫通过谈判解决。
• We want to get all the parties back to the negotiating table. 我们想把有关各方拉回到谈判桌上来。

2 assured   

a.确实的，深信的

参考例句：

• He spoke in a calm, assured voice. 他冷静自信地说。
• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。

3 calculated   

adj.蓄意的

参考例句：

• Cash income is calculated by subtracting total trading income from total receipts. 现金收入是从总收入中减去总贸易收入来计算的。
• I calculated that the trip would take two days. 我估计这段路程要走两天时间。

4 minimum   

adj.最低的，最小的；n.最小量，最低限度

参考例句：

• What is the minimum price?最低价是多少？
• Today's minimum temperature is 10℃.今天的最低气温是10℃。

5 eddy   

n.漩涡，涡流

参考例句：

• The motor car disappeared in eddy of dust.汽车在一片扬尘的涡流中不见了。
• In Taylor's picture,the eddy is the basic element of turbulence.在泰勒的描述里，旋涡是湍流的基本要素。

6 cue   

n.暗示，信号，提示；vt.提示，暗示

参考例句：

• When she coughs,it's my cue to come onto the stage.她一咳嗽，就是给我暗号出场。
• The actor missed his cue and came onto the stage late.这演员错过了向他发出的提示，上场晚了。