Given the current coronavirus pandemic, it was only natural Apple’s annual developer conference would be shelved.
Just now, Apple has announced its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be taking place in June—but in an online only format.
“The online event will be an opportunity for millions of creative and innovative developers to get early access to the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, and engage with Apple engineers as they work to build app experiences that enrich the lives of Apple customers around the globe,” explains a press release.
“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, in a statement. “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.”
Apple says it has more than 23 million registered developers in more than 155 countries and regions. The company says it will also “commit $1 million to local San Jose organizations to offset associated revenue loss as a result of WWDC 2020’s new online format.”
“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.”
Facebook cancelled its F8 developer conference, while so did Google with its I/O developer event. Apple’s physical event won’t take place but the online format should be able to take its place, for now.
…more to follow
