Apple's June WWDC 2020 Event Moving To Online-Only Over Coronavirus Fears
As a result, the company's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) will be online-only this year. Apple made the announcement via its website this morning. Rather than lament the loss of the on-stage keynote with thousands in attendance, or the individual breakout sessions, Apple put its typical upbeat spin on the chance saying that WWDC 2020 will bring "a complete new online experience to millions of creative developers around the world."
Apple says that this online experience will allow developers to "gain early access to the future of Apple platforms and engage with Apple engineers."
“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 Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing 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.”
WWDC is typically a time when Apple talks about all of its upcoming software platforms, including iOS, iPadOS macOS, watchOS and tvOS. Of those, iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 have leaked extensively over the past week. There have been a number of features revealed about iOS 14, and by association, functionality that will be included in watchOS 7.
Apple was widely expected to announce the iPhone SE 2 (or iPhone 9 depending on who you talk to) at a separate event sometime this month. However, the coronavirus is said to have upended those plans and potentially affected the production timetable for the device. There are also unknowns surrounding the production of the first 5G iPhones, which are due this fall.
