Hot off of the news that Disney plans to enter the streaming service game, it appears Apple wants to get a piece of that online entertainment pie for itself.
The tech giant is reportedly investing $1 billion into creating original programming over the next year, helping it give 'Apple TV' a whole new meaning and stand out against Netflix in the process, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The news comes a few months after it was reported Apple snagged Breaking Bad showrunners Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg to produce a still-unannounced project.
It's unclear if Apple is planning to launch an entirely new service to replace the somewhat-outdated, buy-'em-individually iTunes Store, or if the original content will be added to Apple Music, which is currently testing the waters with an exclusive season of James Corden's Carpool Karaoke.
iTV... and everyone else
Considering Apple once considered buying Netflix outright, it makes sense the iPhone maker would be interested in owning a share of the digital TV-watching market, but it may not be an easy battle.
The competitive pool already has Hulu, Netflix, HBO Go, Sling TV, DirectTV Now, Showtime and Amazon Prime Video, and that's not even all of the streaming services available globally. An already crowded market only stands to become more cut-throat with Disney, and potentially Apple's, new ventures.
While Apple may have a cool billion and the know-how to get quality original programming out to customers, the question is whether it can differentiate its content from what's out there already, and get customers to pay for it.
All that said, we may learn more about what Apple has up its sleeve next month during its big iPhone 8 launch event.
Via Engadget
