The recent COVID-19 epidemic has caused many events to be canceled prematurely. MWC 2020 was one of the first events to be scrapped, followed by many others. Many companies have chosen to launch their products online. Google I/O was one of them.
The cancellation of the physical event was announced last month in lieu of an online version. Today, a Google spokesperson said the company is canceling the conference altogether.
Earlier this month, Google canceled the physical event of its Google I/O 2020 annual developer conference citing the coronavirus outbreak. The software giant was exploring options to move the event online and has now made it clear that it will be completely canceled I/O 2020 this year.
Google cancels I/0 2020 entirely due to Coronavirus
The announcement was made last night on his Google Developers Twitter account and was later updated on the official Google I/O website.
“Due to concern for the health and safety of our developers, employees, and local communities, and in line with recent “lockdown” orders from local Bay Area counties, we will unfortunately not be maintaining I/O on any option. », declares Google.
“Right now, the most important thing we can all do is focus our attention on helping people with the new challenges we all face. Please note that we remain committed to finding other ways to share platform updates with you through our developer blogs and community forums.”
Google had already initiated steps to refund event tickets for developers and visitors. People who have registered for I/O 2020 will be directly eligible to purchase tickets for Google I/O 2021.
Meanwhile, the company's Cloud Next'20 event that was originally scheduled to take place April 6-8 at San Francisco's Moscone Center has been changed to launch on the same dates.
The coronavirus pandemic hasn't stopped Google from releasing developer preview builds for its next major version of Android, Android 11. Google is sticking to its roadmap of Android 11 and released Android 11 Developer Preview 2 with enhanced privacy features earlier this week.