苹果谷歌与迪士尼达成协议 电影可跨平台播放

Google and Apple compete in Silicon Valley, and in the mobile computing world. But one powerful company has found a way to get the bitter rivals to play nicely together in the world of streaming content.

Disney has long described its entertainment realm as magical.

That explanation is as good as any as to how Disney appears to have cast a spell to get both Apple and Google onboard a cross-platform deal that include blockbusters like the movie "Frozen".

Through the Disney Movies Anywhere app, users can now play Disney movies through both Apple and Google Android devices no matter where the movie was originally purchased.

"I think it's just actually catching up with an era that has already begun because people have stopped to buy Blu-ray discs and DVD's and even rentals are going down," SR. writer of Gigaom Janko Roettgers said. "Now the studios are waking up and saying wait a minute, what can we do to get people to pay for these movies, paying a lot for these movies right after they come out. So they are catching up with things consumers have been doing for a long time."

Apple and Disney have long had a close relationship. Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs served as chairman of Pixar when it was acquired by Disney. Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder and gained a seat on the board.

Google prides itself on being a more open ecosystem, so this move fits in with that mantra.

But Google and Apple only make money when a film is actually purchased from their own respective store.

"It's a significant step because it brings Apple, Google and Disney together in this relationship, but it's also only Disney movies," Roettgers said. "There are other attempts to do similar things with movies from Universal, and from Warner Brothers and so forth, but they have their own locker, and it's a separate system and it's not connected yet. It's not a complete breakthrough, and it may take so long for the industry to sort it out that people just say I don't care, I'm just gonna pay my $10 for Netflix and wait till movies arrive over there."

Because digital copies also come with DVD purchases, Disney's ultimate hope is to convince customers it's still worth it to buy movies from retail stores.

But tech watchers like Roettgers believe that's a case of Hollywood clinging to an old model and that in time it may need to hear the advice from the heroin in"Fronzen" and just have to let it go.