Apple could also eventually join Netflix and Amazon as a threat, but for now, the studios have cast the Cupertino colossus as a PVOD savior. Accelerating the window on movie transactions doesn’t have the importance of, say, iPhone 8, for Apple, but it’s not a trivial matter, either. Coming days after the company made clear its intent to spend $1 billion on original programming, premium VOD would provide just the kind of boost Apple needs to follow through on CEO Tim Cook’s pledge to double the size of the services business in which its content-related efforts are house by 2020.