Coronavirus has been officially declared as a pandemic by the WHO (World Health Organization). The outbreak has affected more than one hundred countries and is still counting. Companies like Facebook, Google, and others have canceled their events due to coronavirus spread. Canceled events include MWC 2020, Facebook F8, Google I/O 2020, E3 Gaming Expo, GDC 2020, and more. Now Apple has also joined the ‘cancel team’ by canceling WWDC 2020 physical event.
Apple is canceling it’s WWDC 2020 physical event; instead, they’ll stream and announce products online. Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller said,
“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.”
He also added,
“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.”
In a press release, the company said that the current health situation required them to create a new format for the event. The new format not only delivers the full program but also includes a keynote and other sessions.
“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.
Apple also announced $1 million to local San Jose organizations to make up for WWDC 2020 cancelation.
This year, there will be no physical gathering; instead, an online event with keynote will be streamed. Typically, Apple used to began WWDC with a keynote, products, and software announcements and then sessions for the rest of the week.