Apple confirmed that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference will begin on June 22.
As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Apple will be hosting the conference virtually for the first time in the event’s 31-year history due to ongoing Covid-19 containment efforts.
Apple said developers from around the world will get access to the next major versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS at the conference. “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,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of worldwide marketing.
“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 Schiller in a statement today.
It’s not uncommon for Apple to slip in a couple of hardware announcements at WWDC. Last year, for example, we saw the company unveil its new third-gen Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR and in 2017, we got the HomePod smart speaker, a 10.5-inch iPad Pro and a new iMac Pro, among other refreshed hardware.
With Apple having just announced a refreshed 13-inch MacBook Pro this week in addition to the newly minted iPhone SE, a refreshed MacBook Air and a new iPad Pro, it’s looking more and more likely that this year’s WWDC could be a hardware-free affair.
WWDC isn’t the only developer event to go all-virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic: Microsoft’s Build 2020 will be a 48-hour free virtual event that kicks off on May 19th at 11AM ET. Google’s I/O 2020 developer conference, however, was completely canceled in March.
