Facebook Cancels F8 Developers Conference Due to Coronavirus, Will Apple Cancel WWDC?

Facebook announced today that it is cancelling the in-person component of its F8 2020 developers conference. The conference was scheduled for May 5-6 in San Jose, California.

Every year, we look forward to connecting with our global developer community at F8 and sharing our vision for the future that we’re building together. But given the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person component of F8 2020.

This was a tough call to make -- F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it’s one of our favorite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world -- but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on. We explored other ways to keep the in-person part of F8, but it’s important to us to host an inclusive event and it didn’t feel right to have F8 without our international developers in attendance.


Facebook plans to replace the conference with some locally hosted events, videos, and live streamed content. You can sign up for more information here.

The move has sparked speculation that Apple could also cancel its Worldwide Developers Conference which is typically held in June. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook just commented on the situation in China saying: "It feels to me that China is getting the coronavirus under control. You look at the numbers that are coming down day by day by day. So, I'm very optimistic there."

Do you think Apple should cancel WWDC? Or, perhaps limit it to U.S. residents only? Let us know in the comments!