With standing shelter-in-place (SIP) and lockdown initiatives in place to keep people safe and flatten the curve during this COVID-19 pandemic, many of the major product launches and massive developer events have either been cancelled, postponed, or moved online in some form or another. Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference, which Canadian Reviewer has covered live various times in the past, will be reimagined as an online-only event to faciliate remote meeting protocols and keep developers and Apple employees safe.
Apple today announced it will host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference virtually, beginning June 22, in the Apple Developer app and on the Apple Developer website for free for all developers. This makes WWDC, which previously used a lottery system to limit the number of attendees, a lot more inclusive.
“WWDC20 will be our biggest yet, bringing together our global developer community of more than 23 million in an unprecedented way for a week in June to learn about the future of Apple platforms,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We can’t wait to meet online in June with the global developer community and share with them all of the new tools we’ve been working on to help them create even more incredible apps and services. We look forward to sharing more details about WWDC20 with everyone as we get closer to this exciting event.”
While WWDC is a developer show, there have been product announcements and previews during this event. For journalists attending the keynote, these hands-on sessions afforded a sneak peek at upcoming products and technologies. It will be interesting to see how Apple pivots this public-facing aspect of WWDC.