In a busy week for SARS-CoV-2-related developments, the virus has prompted one more main trade convention to vary their plans. Today Apple has introduced that the corporate’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) shall be going down in June in any case, however that it’ll now be a digital-only present. Calling it an “entirely new online format”, Apple is promising information and occasions for customers, the press, and naturally, builders.
One of the key fixtures of summer time commerce reveals, Apple usually holds WWDC each June within the San Francisco Bay Area. For the previous couple of years the corporate has been holding the occasion on the San Jose Convention Center – a handy 15 minutes from their campus – which is now caught within the crossfire of coronavirus. The regular format of the present has largely been developer-focused, nonetheless Apple has usually used the primary morning of the present for a public keynote that gives high-level particulars about software program modifications to come back, together with some irregular {hardware} and repair bulletins.
But with coronavirus persevering with to trigger points across the globe, and nobody being fairly positive the place issues will stand in June, Apple has pulled the plug on their conventional San Jose present fully. Instead, the corporate is pivoting over to a digital-only format.
The transient announcement doesn’t supply a complete lot of particulars about how the brand new format will work – Apple says that extra data shall be coming later – nevertheless it’s attention-grabbing to notice that Apple is particularly calling out content material for customers and the press, and never simply builders. For quite a few causes, it’s to Apple’s profit to stay with having a public keynote (or equal) as a way to promote their model and construct up shopper curiosity. But the format shift provides new alternatives to do extra consumer-facing occasions, particularly because the bodily capability of the San Jose Convention Center, already bursting on the seams throughout common WWDCs, is now not a limiting issue.
Overall, WWDC’s shift to a digital-only format makes it the most recent of a number of reveals to be altered as a result of coronavirus pandemic. With Microsoft and Google additionally taking their reveals digital, whereas E3 has been canceled, WWDC was one of many final reveals to stay undecided on the matter. Which leaves all eyes on Computex, the key Taiwanese {hardware} present, because the final remaining main commerce present or convention that’s nonetheless set to happen within the first half of this yr.
