Disney In Talks To Merge Its Theme Park Apps Into Disney+

During the most recent Disney Annual Shareholders Meeting, the new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, revealed that he wanted Disney+ to become the digital centrepiece of the company, stating:

“Disney+ will continue to evolve beyond a traditional streaming service to become the digital centrepiece of our company – a portal that connects our stories, experiences, games, films, and more in entirely new ways.”

This is very similar to plans revealed years ago by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who wanted to launch something similar to Amazon Prime within Disney+.  Bob Iger also wanted to incorporate more elements of the company into a single app experience.    Later this year, the Hulu app will be phased out, as it merges into Disney+ and we’ve also seen how ESPN Unlimited is also available via the Disney+ app.   Fubo’s CEO, David Gandler, has also spoken during investor calls about closer links to Disney+ to reach a bigger audience. 

In a recent report by Bloomberg, executives are looking at ways to incorporate many of the company’s apps into Disney+, such as the My Disney Experience app for Walt Disney World or Disneyland, the Disney Cruise Line Navigator and others. 

These talks are still in the early stages and might not necessarily come to anything, but talks are still happening at a high level. 

Disney has already integrated most of its apps and websites with a single “MyID” login, so users can have a single Disney account, making a potential merger much easier, since they are already connected.

Roger’s Take:  While the idea of a single app to bring all of Disney’s content together into one place sounds like a great idea in theory, I’m not so sure it’s a great move.   Having all of the experiences apps merged together, like the parks and cruise line does make more sense for some customers. Incorporating these functions into Disney+ will result in the app becoming very bloated with additional features and data, most of which isn’t going to be used by the majority of users.  

While I currently have multiple Disney apps on my phone, including Disney Cruise Line, and Walt Disney World, most of these apps will be uninstalled once my upcoming trips are completed.  Plus, how would this work for the international theme parks in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong or Shanghai?   Does a Disney+ subscribers in Australia need theme park attraction queue times for a theme park thousands of miles away?   

Having themed content together, such as the Disney Experiences in one single app, does make sense on some levels or bringing the content side, i.e., Hulu, ESPN, Fubo, etc., into Disney+ seems logical.   But where does that end?  Disney has apps like Marvel Unlimited for comic books, the official D23 fan club, plus dozens of mobile games.   Having everything in one place will bloat out the app for people not using it.  They could have options to download these features as needed, but it all seems extra work for most users.  

I certainly think many of Disney’s apps can be merged together to reduce development costs, and to have a single app experience might help increase sales of Disney trips and usage of other services, but considering it will have taken Disney over half a decade to merge Hulu into Disney+, I can’t help but think these ideas probably won’t get too far, once the bluesky thinking is replaced with reality. 

What do you think of all of Disney’s apps being merged into Disney+?  Let me know on social media!