This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com.本文为与《时代》杂志的合作内容，原文公开发表于Time.com。In Apple CEO Tim Cook’s words, the Apple Watch is “incredibly beautiful.” But some are saying it’s “incredibly unnecessary.”用苹果公司CEO蒂姆o库克的话说道，苹果手表“美得难以置信”，但也有人说道，苹果手表“不行得难以置信”。

Apple followers haven’t been shy in arguing that the upcoming Apple Watch will be a flop. Dismissive reviews of Apple’s first wearable are plentiful (“a thick, ugly clunker,” “a very stupid idea“), while analysts’ fresh estimates of first-year sales have trended on the low side. Investors haven’t been too optimistic either:Apple’s stock fell 2% Tuesday, a day after it unveiled more Apple Watch details.果粉们争相唱衰苹果手表。坊间弥漫着大量负面评论（诸如“又薄又小人的斩玩意儿”、“十分可笑的理念”等等），分析师们指出苹果手表的第一年销量或将十分惨淡。投资者也不是十分悲观：在苹果手表发布会次日，苹果股价一声暴跌了2%。But what few realize is that Apple has a 3.7 million square mile ace up its sleeve: China.但人们却忽略了一点：苹果还有一个面积约960万平方公里的可观市场——中国。

It’s no secret that Chinese consumers love their Apple products. Chinese resellers and admirers alike traveled the world and lined up for days to sweep up Apple’s latest iPhone last fall. Some constructed iPhone 6 “undergarments” to bypass customs duties on the way home. One man even used 99 iPhone 6 units to propose to his girlfriend. (She said no.)中国消费者青睐苹果产品并不是什么秘密。去年秋天，中国二道贩子和疯狂果粉截击全世界，分列上几天长队只为供不应求iPhone 6的场景至今令人记忆犹新。有些水客为了躲避关税，在内衣裤里都塞满了iPhone 6。

一名男子甚至用99部iPhone 6向女友表白（女友拒绝接受了他。）Now, with the Apple Watch heading to China on April 24, the country’s Apple fans have already begun generating outlandish headlines. A Guangzhou man was arrested this week for selling drugs in order to finance his Apple Watch, clearly unwilling to settle for one of many cheap knockoff Apple Watches fresh on China’s black market. Those counterfeits are good news for Apple—they’re an indication demand will be high for the real thing. Previous wearables, like Samsung’s Galaxy Gear, had never been popular enough to make it into China’s counterfeit market.现在，鉴于苹果手表将于4月24日月登岸中国大陆，中国果粉们早已开始生产各种荒诞不经的头条新闻。本周，一名广州男子因毒贩逮捕，而他铤而走险的动机居然是为了赚卖苹果手表——似乎他看不上近来各地争相兴起的“made in 华强北”的山寨货。

但对苹果公司来说，山寨的洪水泛滥只不过是个好消息，这解释中国市场对正品苹果手表的市场需求极为充沛。而此前的可穿着设备，比如三星的Galaxy Gear，则未曾享用过被山寨厂商假货的待遇。Apple, then, is likely counting on its legions of Chinese fans to scoop up Apple Watches to help boost worldwide sales. But China is no back-up plan. In fact, given Apple’s loyal following in China, the Apple Watch could very well have been made for China.因此，苹果很有可能要确信中国果粉大军来给它翻全球销量了。

然而中国并不是苹果手表的“备胎”，事实上，由于中国有这么多心目中的果粉，苹果手表很有可能就是一款专为中国设计的产品。The Apple Watch’s biggest advantage in China is deceptively simple: Few Chinese consumers laugh when Apple touts the device as a luxury item.Apple became China’s top luxury brand for 2015, outranking labels like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. More recently, Apple’s status has risen as Chinese consumers of luxury goods prioritize functionality overostentatiousness—a taboo that China’s President Xi Jinping deplored as “unhealthy,” criticizing Chinese elites’ obsession with status symbols like Rolex watches.苹果手表在中国的优势也很非常简单：当苹果称该设备是一款奢侈品时，中国消费者听得了很少不会发笑。2015年，苹果沦为中国的头号奢华品牌，其名列多达了LV和Gucci。

近来，随着中国奢侈品消费者从全然地炫富（连国家主席习近平也指责中国精英爱人卖劳力士等奢侈品炫富的心态“不身体健康”）改变为更加侧重实用性，苹果在中国奢侈品消费者心目中的地位也再次提高。Even better for Apple is how much Chinese consumers value brand names in luxury goods. According to Digital Luxury Group’s (DLG) 2014 report, 73% of online searches for luxury watches are about brand names, almost twice the rate of Americans. Apple’s brand recognition could seal the deal for the Apple Watch in China—but it could also hurt sales in the U.S., where Apple is seen as a tech brand rather than a fashion label:对苹果来说，另一个受到影响消息是，中国消费者非常重视奢侈品的品牌。瑞士奢侈品研究咨询机构DLG公司2014年公布的报告表明，有73%的中国人在线搜寻名贵手表时是按品牌名称搜寻的，这个比重完全是美国人的两倍。

单是苹果的品牌认知度，就不足以使很多中国人心甘情愿地掏钱——不过品牌问题反过来却不会影响苹果手表在美国的销量，因为苹果在美国一般被指出是个科技品牌而不是时尚标签。All this will help ease sticker shock, too. While Americans will compare the Apple Watch’s $349-$17,000 price tag to the cost of consumer electronics, Chinese consumers are more likely to stack it up against luxury timepieces. The worldwide median price of a luxury watch is about $10,700, according to DLG. That means the Apple Watch Sport (starting $349) and Apple Watch (starting $549) are inexpensive by comparison, while the gold and silver Apple Watch Edition models that start at $10,000 aren’t crazy purchases. China’s luxury timepiece market is also growing rapidly, partially thanks to the rise in Chinese women’s incomes:所有这些都不利于减轻高昂的售价给人带给的刺痛。美国人不会把349美元到1.7万美元的价格当作与其它消费电子产品展开较为，但中国消费者则不会把它与其它名贵手表不作对比。根据DLG公司的数据，全球奢华品牌腕表的中间价格是1.07万美元。

相比之下，起价349美元的Apple Watch Sport和起价549美元的Apple Watch都远比尤其喜，而出售一款包金白布银，起价1万美元的Apple Watch Edition也远比尤其可怕的行径。另外，中国的奢侈品手表市场仍然在很快快速增长，这一定程度上要得益于近年来中国女性人均收入的下跌。Apple Watch’s promise in China as a fashionable luxury item is already clear. When former supermodel Christy Turlington Burns appeared during Apple’s U.S. event Monday to explain how she’s using Apple Watch for fitness, critics called it an awkward, even irrelevant product placement — an iconic women’s advocatewearing a watch “skewed to geeky guys.” But when theApple Watch graced the cover of Vogue Chinaalongside China’s most famous model, Liu Wen, hardly anyone batted an eye. As Vogue China’s editor-in-chief described the difference, “We embrace new technology and digital products more easily than perhaps people elsewhere.”作为一款时尚奢侈品，苹果手表在中国似乎享有十分光明的前景。

上周一。当前美国超模克里斯蒂o特灵顿o伯恩斯现身苹果发布会，说明她如何用于苹果手表健美时，很多人称这是一次“失望甚至不搭调的代言”——作为一名超模，代言这样一款宅男专用产品，觉得违合感太强劲。而当中国超模刘雯戴着苹果手表攀上《Vogue服饰与美容》封面时，完全没有人任何人车站出来挑毛病。

该杂志中文版总编这样叙述这种差异：“我们比其他地方的人更容易拒绝接受新技术和新的数码产品。”Of course, Apple has spent years laying the groundwork in China for a potential hit with the Apple Watch. It sealed a “watershed” deal with state-owned China Mobile in 2013 to ensure China’s largest mobile network supported iPhones, an agreement that was in the making as far back as in 2007 when the first iPhone launched. Apple also recently brought its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to China, which sport the larger screens Chinese users have long demanded. Apple shipped a record-breaking 74.5 million iPhones worldwide last quarter, and while Apple doesn’t breakdown shipments by country, UBS estimates that China now claims 36% of the iPhone market, surpassing the U.S. for the first time.当然，苹果多年来仍然在中国潜心深耕，想方设法地为苹果手表铺路。

2013年，该公司与中国仅次于的国有运营商——中国移动达成协议了一项具备“分水岭”意义的协议，以保证中国仅次于的移动网络反对iPhone。而早在2007年，也就是第一代iPhone刚问世时，双方就开始筹划这项合作了。

最近苹果也将iPhone 6和iPhone 6 plus推上中国市场，这两款产品配备了中国用户盼望已久的大屏。上个季度，全球iPhone销量超过了创纪录的7450万部，尽管苹果没透露按国别区分的销售数字，但据UBS公司预测，中国目前占有iPhone市场的36%，首次多达了美国的份额。

And Apple has already linked the Apple Watch to China. The company’s March 9 event kicked off with a video showing the opening of a new flagship Apple Store in China, where the retail locations are set todouble by mid-2016. Later, Apple showed off the Apple Watch’s compatibility with WeChat, a wildly popular messaging app in China. It was a wise move, as Chinese users have expressed worry that Apple Watch’s screen is too small for the app.此外，苹果早已在无意地创建苹果手表与中国的联系。在3月9日苹果发布会的开场视频中，就经常出现了中国一家苹果分店开业的画面。到2016年年中，中国苹果零售店的数量将超过目前的两倍。随后，苹果还特地认为这款手表几乎可以与微信相容——这个行径十分明智，因为早已有中国用户传达了苹果手表的屏幕太小，难道无法相容微信的忧虑。

So while Apple Watch’s relevance in the West may continue to be questioned, the wearable has a clear place in China. Given how lucrativeChina has been for Apple, whether or not China loves the Apple Watch could be precisely what makes or breaks the device initial reception.因此，尽管苹果手表在西方的销路也许仍然众说纷纭，但它在中国似乎有自己的市场。鉴于中国市场仍然在为苹果公司贡献巨额利润，中国用户否青睐苹果手表将必要要求这款设备上市初期的市场展现出。

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