Apple to hold WWDC 2020 online due to coronavirus pandemic

The conference – which will introduce iOS and iPadOS 14 – will still be held in June on unspecified dates. Leif Johnson reports

Apple isn’t cancelling its annual Worldwide Developers Conference this year, but it is changing the format. According to a statement, Apple will hold WWDC 2020 online in order to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. In the statement, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller referred to the pandemic as the “current health situation”.

He also said Apple aimed to create a “new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full programme with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world”.

Schiller did not specify the actual dates, but he confirmed that the event would be held in June as usual. In our event calendar, we speculate that the most likely dates for the event are June 1-5 or 8-12 in keeping with Apple’s traditions in recent years.

The iPhone maker’s response is a departure from that of other Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook, who recently cancelled the physical components of I/O and F8 respectively, with no clear announcement of what the virtual shows will look like. Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi said in the statement that WWDC is going to be “big” and filled with “new products and technologies”. Those products and technologies will almost certainly include iOS and iPadOS 14, tvOS 14, watchOS 7and macOS 10.16.

In recent years, Apple has held WWDC in San Jose. In order to offset the negative economic impact on the city resulting from the cancellation of the live show, Apple says it will commit more than $1 million to “local organizations”.