While the pandemic in some ways may be easing, both companies are sticking with online-only events for developers this year. Credit: Dilok Klaisataporn / Getty Images Microsoft and Apple will host their respective developer conferences — Build and WWDC — over the next two months as all-virtual events, mimicking their confabs of 2020. Apple was first to announce last week that WWDC —its Worldwide Developers Conference — will take place June 7-11, those dates in line with the Cupertino, Calif. company’s usual first-full-week-of-June schedule and so several weeks earlier than last year. Meanwhile, Microsoft has now posted the dates for its Build developers conference — May 25-27 — on its company events portal. In 2020, both companies canceled their in-person conferences because of the just-starting COVID-19 pandemic, then replaced them with all-online events. Microsoft kicked off last year’s two-day Build on May 19; Apple began WWDC’s five-day run on June 22. Both conferences won accolades for, among other things, making the events accessible to much greater numbers than their physical predecessors, and for their greatly reduced or entirely eliminated fees. Of the two, Apple’s WWDC was the more professionally produced. Microsoft’s events portal notice does not yet include details about next month’s Build — and the Build website has not been refreshed to reflect this year’s conference — but it will probably be a repeat of 2020’s, which offered both pre-recorded keynotes and live-streamed sessions on numerous topics. The latter were repeated multiple times during the course of the conference and were available on-demand afterward. Apple’s 2020 WWDC was composed entirely of pre-recorded videos, and the assumption is that this year’s version will use the same format. Apple did say that more information about the conference will be issued in advance of the opening day via the dedicated app, the Apple Developer website, and email. Unless Microsoft and Apple radically change the conferences’ monetary underpinnings, they will be free (in the case of Build) and available to registered developers (Apple). Anyone can register as an Apple developer, however, simply by paying the $99 annual fee. Interested parties should keep tabs on the events by periodically visiting their hosting websites here (Microsoft) and here (Apple). Related content feature Windows 11: A guide to the updates Here’s what you need to know about the latest updates to Windows 11 as they’re released from Microsoft. Now updated for KB506980 Preview, released on April 23, 2024. By Preston Gralla Apr 25, 2024 59 mins Small and Medium Business Windows 11 Windows feature Windows 10: A guide to the updates Here's what you need to know about each update to the current version of Windows 10 as it's released from Microsoft. Now updated for KB5036979 Preview, released on April 23, 2024. By Preston Gralla Apr 25, 2024 172 mins Small and Medium Business Windows 10 Microsoft opinion The end of non-compete agreements is a tech job earthquake The FTC ruled this week that companies can no longer use non-compete agreements to stop workers from moving from one job to another — and businesses are having fits. By Steven Vaughan-Nichols Apr 25, 2024 5 mins Regulation Government IT Jobs news Meta opens its mixed-reality Horizon OS to other headset makers Lenovo and Asus are among the companies building headsets that run Horizon software. The move expands Meta’s reach in the AR/VR market, while enabling headset vendors to focus on hardware development rather than software. By Matthew Finnegan Apr 24, 2024 6 mins Augmented Reality Google Virtual Reality Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe