Tech companies continue to be impacted by the coronavirus(COVID-19) pandemic. Apple’s WWDC 2020 joins Google’s IO 2020 and other major tech conferences like Facebook’s F8 to become digital-only events. Earlier today, the Cupertino-based company announced that their 31st Worldwide Developers Conference which was scheduled to take place in June will be a digital-only event.
Apple being Apple even reframed the event change as innovation saying that WWDC 2020 will be “a completely new online experience.”
The developer conference usually has a physical gathering held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. Multiple cases of coronavirus have been reported in the area and Apple is being cautious.
What Now?
The online WWDC event will be packed with content for developers, press and consumers, Apple says. They’ll be an online keynote where Apple will announce new software and hardware products including iOS 14, iPad OS 14, macOS 10.16, tvOS 14 and WatchOS 7.
Developer sessions and more info on these upcoming operating systems will be available not only on the Apple Developer website but also on the dedicated WWDC app for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
It does give Apple a ton of flexibility as to when they can release videos; they need not pack everything into the same week and overload developers with simultaneous sessions. Dedicate a few days to each topic over x number of weeks https://t.co/6c7c4GxEcC
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) March 13, 2020
Just like Google, Apple pledged to commit $1 million to local San Jose organizations to offset the associated revenue loss as a result of WWDC 2020’s online format.
No date yet either for the conference. This gives Apple some fluidity too in case things are running a week or 2 behind. Obviously, in this case, no one wants Apple to have that benefit. I’d imagine they do the keynote at the Steve Jobs theater with a thin employee audience. https://t.co/7BZBPC4psj
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 13, 2020
What They’re Saying
“We are delivering WWDC 2020 this June in an innovative way to millions of developers around the world, bringing the entire developer community together with a new experience,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world. We will be sharing all of the details in the weeks ahead.”
“With all of the new products and technologies we’ve been working on, WWDC 2020 is going to be big,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
“I look forward to our developers getting their hands on the new code and interacting in entirely new ways with the Apple engineers building the technologies and frameworks that will shape the future across all Apple platforms.”
Apple's WWDC 2020 press release is pretty bare bones. An online format was the obvious path forward. The details (which likely are still being worked out) will be interesting. For example, how will this online keynote work? What about the developer / Apple engineer labs?
— Neil Cybart (@neilcybart) March 13, 2020
WWDC ’20 is online-only: https://t.co/Y78eGYa1nf
Most details TBA, but some interesting bits:
– “Apple’s entire global developer community” — sounds like “free”
– Labs? “developers … interacting in entirely new ways with the Apple engineers”
– $1M in San Jose business relief
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) March 13, 2020
