Original programming is everywhere. Netflix touts exclusive after exclusive. Amazon rolls out critically acclaimed series. And yet, oddly missing from this revolution is Apple, outside of the occasional concert and music docu-series. And they’ve finally decided to step in with a series about, uh, apps and Will.i.am.
There aren’t many details, aside from who’s involved. We do know that one of the executives behind The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Jane The Virgin, Ben Silverman, is involved and it’s apparently his idea in the first place, as he came to Apple. The presence of noted musical legend Will.i.am seems partially due to his involvement in Beats, Apple’s recent acquisition. All we really know is that it’ll be about the “app economy” and that Apple is mum about how heavily involved their app store would be in the series. They’re also not going to be turning into a film studio anytime soon:
“This doesn’t mean that we are going into a huge amount of movie production or TV production or anything like that,” [Apple senior vice president Eddy] Cue said. He added that the company would continue to explore exclusive projects similar to the series about apps or its push into music programming.
This isn’t Will.i.am’s first visit to the tech world. Back in 2014, he planned to introduce a smartwatch and his move to become a part of Beats before the Apple acquisition. And Silverman knows his way around reality shows, with The Biggest Loser on his resume. If nothing else, it’ll be curious to see what Apple views as the kind of original programming it wants out there. For now, there’s no release date, but we won’t be surprised if we get more details later this year.
(Via The New York Times)