Apple’s Virtual WWDC to Start June 22nd
Apple has announced the start date for its virtual Worldwide Developers Conference: 22 June 2020. That’s a bit later than usual, perhaps due to the difficulty of reshuffling the format and the added complication of the company’s employees working remotely. We’re lucky that Apple is holding WWDC at all—Google completely canceled its I/O conference after promising to hold it remotely, and Facebook replaced its F8 developer conference with “a series of updates throughout the year.”
Happily, no $1599 ticket is required—this year’s virtual conference will be open to all registered Apple developers. We anticipate that the keynote will be streamed for everyone to watch. Apple is encouraging all interested developers to install the Apple Developer app for iOS, iPadOS, and tvOS, which will offer more information and session videos as they become available.
Since there’s no point in offering student scholarships this year, Apple is instead holding a Swift Student Challenge. Interested students should build a Swift Playground that can be experienced in 3 minutes or less and submit it to Apple by 11:59 PM PDT on 17 May 2020. Winners will receive an exclusive WWDC20 jacket and pin set.
The email that Apple sent me about this event featured this not-at-all-creepy image.
I’ve rarely reached for the delete key so quickly! I know that, at 57, I’m not the target audience—but what seems to be a multiply pierced baby, settled firmly in the Uncanny Valley and bearing God knows what expression behind the open screen of their MacBook (perhaps an open smile, but perhaps a nakedly predatory grin)? I’m still shuddering!
Yeah, the animojis used are pretty cringey, though I find the whole thing animoji thing cringey in general.
Couldn’t agree more with the two of you. Think it’s time for the adults to take over again.
Woah…this is very creepy. So I’m going to take a guess…since the only business reason I can think of that makes sense for Apple to use a doll reminiscent of Chucky for the visual is for gaming. So my guess is that’s this WWDC will emphasize VR/AR and their gaming platform. Of course, there will lots of stuff about business, engineering and medical applications. Apple has been making a lot of noise about VR/AR for years. Maybe they’ll even debut glasses?
One more thing…many developers of AR/VR apps will likely need mega hardware that can render like wildfire, and manage color and image manipulation with super speed. A significant % VR/AR developers will be targets for the super duper, mega expensive Mac Pro, screen and stand.
Apple definitely has big long-term plans for AR. The technology behind animoji is amazing. The execution, not so much.
A question I couldn’t find a definitive answer to, so I guess this will be a long shot. Will the WWDC opening presentation be available for non developers, such as myself to stream?
Yes, as usual. Both the Keynote and the State of the Platform the following morning are usually freely streamed. Both very interesting typically.
It will be interesting to see what else is freely viewable from the event. I have a developer account but I’ve not renewed for the past few years, I may do so for this.
All sessions except labs have been public for at least several years. Not live, but last year they were up pretty quickly. (N.b, a gastropod’s definition of ‘quick’ may differ slightly from others…)
Best way to watch them on a Mac is the Unofficial WWDC for MacOS app. You can search all available sessions by subject, platform, year, etc. and they can be downloaded. Sierra up. I really hope that whatever Apple is setting up will still work properly with it at least for any non-interactive stuff.
https://wwdc.io
Many of the sessions I’ve watched, especially the accessibility ones, have been great. If only Apple’s developers were required to watch them, pay attention, and actually follow the guidelines.
Add this recent acquisition to the reasons why I suspect they might be targeting VR/AR to developers at the WWDC:
And now a virtual CES: