Apple's Launch Event: Apple attempts to become more affordable

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Staying with technology. Apple just held a big event with much fanfare. But it was a little different from the tech giant's usual show. There was no new hardware at all. It was all about services and some big ones. Mark Niu joins us from just outside Apple's headquarters to tell us what it's all about.

With weaker sales in China taking a toll, Apple has a new approach to making iPhones more affordable. The Silicon Valley giant is teaming up with Alibaba's Ant Financial to offer interest-free financing for iPhones - that can be paid off from three months to as much as two years. For the new iPhone XR, that would mean paying about 40 US dollars a month.

BOB O'DONNELL, PRESIDENT TECHNALYSIS RESEARCH "If you look at Apple's line of phones and their prices, even the least expensive of their phones is still pretty expensive in China compared to say Oppo and Vivo and a number of the bigger players in China. To remain competitive in a market that's very highly saturated, they really have to be aggressive in terms of what they're able to do in terms of pricing."

In Beijing, we found a number of customers taking advantage of the financing program.

"I prefer the interest-free loan way because cash flow is important. This will make life easier."

"We just graduated, so our income is not much. An interest-free loan helps reduce our economic pressure. We just bought an iPhone through interest-free loan a few days ago. Only had to pay 200 RMB per month, which is budget-friendly."

But as Apple attempts to become more affordable to middle-class consumers in China, it also faces struggles at home. A handful of companies have already unveiled foldable phones and 5G phones-both considered groundbreaking achievements. Apple has not introduced these technologies, or even mentioned them.

Now, Apple is going in another direction, announcing a new credit card - called Apple Card - a partnership with Goldman Sachs. Apple says the card will have no annual fees or late fees and will focus heavily on privacy. When used via Apple Pay, customers will get two-percent cash back on transactions and three-percent when spent on Apple products. Apple hopes the incentives will lure customers in.

"I'm not in the market for a new credit card right now. If I was, I'd want to be considering all the options."

"We have three iPads, two iPhones, an iMac, a desktop Mac. And they all integrate together. So, being able to purchase those things through an Apple credit would be great."

BOB O'DONNELL, PRESIDENT TECHNALYSIS RESEARCH "I think it would be fair to say that they'd love to be the Alipay of the U.S. or the WeChat of the U.S. in that regard. That's a very comprehensive way to pay for almost anything over in China. And if Apple could have a piece of that, that would be a very important deal for them."

Apple Card also differs from the competition in that the actual physical card will be made of Titanium and will not have a card number, expiration date or signature.