Due To Coronavirus, Apple 2020 WWDC Goes Entirely Online For The First Time

14/03/2020

The first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in the United States was announced on January 21, 2020.

By March 12, 2020, diagnosed cases of the novel COVID-19 in the country exceeded 1,000. At the time, out of the 40 deaths, 31 occurred in Washington, with 13 of those at a nursing home. Cases have been confirmed in 49 out of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Responses to the outbreak have included prohibitions and cancellation of large-scale gatherings.

And here, Apple announced that it is canceling its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and said that this 2020 event is going to be entirely online.

For the first time in the conference’s history, the event is going to be streamed online, but without live component of the show, which has been a staple for over 30 years.

Hello WWDC 2020

According to Apple, its 2020 WWDC is planned to feature “a full program with an online keynote and sessions.”

The company also hinted news about the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS.

"With all of the new products and technologies we’ve been working on, WWDC 2020 is going to be big… 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," said Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of software engineering, prior to the cancellation.

Since COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic by the WHO, more precautions should be taken, and Apple in canceling its event, follows others, like Microsoft in canceling its Build event, Google in canceling its I/O event, Facebook in canceling its F8 event, GSMA in canceling its MWC event, among others.

According to Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP of global marketing, as quoted by Apple on its Newsroom announcement:

“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.”

“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.”

The WWDC 2020 event is expected to be attract by many attendees from developers and media. Since the event is canceled, the company announced that it will commit $1 million to the local San Jose organizations to offset associated revenue loss "as a result of WWDC 2020’s new online format."