WWDC and the Big Mobile Development Conferences in 2020

With the global landscape changed permanently due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of changes are being made by every industry to adapt. Moving everything online is one of the biggest trends seen everywhere. Education and work (where possible) have all shifted to remote from the safety of people’s homes. Mobile development conferences in 2020 and other huge events have been hit by the pandemic. Usually attended by hundreds if not thousands of people from an international audience, tech conferences like WWDC and Google I/O are forced to reassess. Many companies have opted to cancel their annual conferences as Google did with Google I/O.

This isn’t the case for some tech conferences that took the initiative to shift their conferences and events completely online. Obviously holding these sorts of events online wasn’t invented this year. There are plenty of online-only events that have been held annually before the pandemic. We’ve compiled a list of the biggest mobile development conferences in 2020 to help you keep up to date with the biggest news.

This list will be constantly updated as things are constantly shifting nowadays so stay tuned for any updates.

Mobile Development Conferences 2020

Apple’s WWDC 2020

Starting June 22

The biggest example of an event being moved online is Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC 2020). Instead of a physical conference, it will be a week-long online event beginning June 22. This is WWDC’s 31st iteration which makes it a huge deal that the change is happening. In a statement along with the announcement Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said, “The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world.”

This move gives worldwide fans and developers equal opportunity to experience early access to the future of all things iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The main announcements at WWDC are expected to the next iterations of all the platforms this will probably include iOS 14, iPadOS 14, macOS 10.16, watchOS 7, and tvOS 14.

Students are also a big focus for this year’s event. The aspiring developers had the opportunity to enter the Swift Student Challenge by “creating an interactive scene in a Swift playground that can be experienced within three minutes”. The question remains if the conference is a huge success whether or not the format will remain for next year or not.

Dates: Beginning June 22nd
Price: Free

try! Swift World

Constantly Ongoing

try! Swift World is a bit different than normal events and workshops. Instead of being held on specific dates squeezing all the talks and workshops together, they make the most of the online-only format. Workshops are available constantly and let you choose which ones appeal to you the most to add.

They focus on giving workshops a more personal touch by limiting them to 10 attendees and lasting for about an hour. Workshops are led by some of the top Swift developers around the world and give extra time for networking and brainstorming with colleagues.

Dates: Constantly ongoing, check their main website or twitter for updates.
Price: Varies depending on the workshop.

mDevCamp 2020

June 10-11

mDevCamp is the largest conference for mobile developers in Central Europe. This will be the 9th edition featuring a great array of speakers and networking opportunities. Similar to most conferences it is usually done in person annually. Instead of just shifting to online talks and streams, mDevCamp has come up with one of the more creative ways to hold a conference. They created a virtual world to help developers ‘e-meet’ and better network and interact while being safe at home.

Dates: June 10 – 11
Price: 19€ per ticket

Hacking with Swift Live 2020

July 13-16

Normally an in-person event, Hacking with Swift Live will be shifted online this year due to the pandemic. Hacking with Swift are big players in the iOS dev circles and they bring a breadth of expertise to these events. Attendees will be able to learn, build, and network with a shared love for iOS development. They’ve also announced that all profits from the event will go to charity and focus on bringing the iOS community together this year. The online iOS event will be four days of learning and covering everything new from WWDC20.

Dates: July 13-16
Price: £330 per ticket

droidcon Berlin

October 7-9

Even though it mainly focuses on a more European audience, droidcon Berlin is still one of the biggest Android conferences anywhere. It’s a place where the industry’s leading Android experts can come together with their shared love of the Android platform and create a strong network for developers and companies. This would be the 12th edition and unlike many who opted to move to an online conference, droidcon Berlin is still planning on being a physical event.

Initially planned to take place July 1-3, it has been delayed to October 7-9. In their statement, they said that they “remain hopeful that the current COVID-19 outbreak will be largely contained in the summer months and are confident that our international Android Developer community will be able to meet and interact in person at droidcon Berlin in October.”

Dates: October 7-9, 2020
Price: €119 – €444