Apple inevitably cancels its traditional WWDC event, but reimagines it in an ‘all-new online format’

If you’ve paid any attention whatsoever to the news in the last few weeks – and particularly in the last 24 hours – then you won’t be surprised to learn that Apple has been forced to take action with its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, better known as WWDC.

Apple traditionally dedicates the California event to showing off the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS in a keynote, after which it hosts sessions about developing for the various software platforms. But due to the ongoing spread of COVID-19, the new illness caused by a virus called coronavirus, around the world – or as Apple puts it, ‘the current health situation’ – that’s unsurprisingly no longer a viable option.

Rather than cancelling altogether, Apple has repackaged WWDC 2020 as an online event. We’ll still get a conference, and the developer community will still get its hands on the updates, but people won’t be gathering in a big, sweaty hall.

“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. “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.”

The new WWDC will take place in June, with no firm date set as yet.