Apple has officially announced that its WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) event will kick off on June 7 with a keynote event. 

Just like the 2020 event, this will be solely an online event. Streaming events have become commonplace for Apple over the last year and we had the iPhone 12 and iPad Air 4 launch in similar ways.

When is WWDC 2021?

The big keynote for the event will take place on Monday, June 7 and then developer sessions will run until June 11. As usual, things will kick off with a keynote address on June 7 at 10 PDT (6PM BST).

Apple has teased the keynote with the image below, which holds a couple of little bits worth mentioning.

There’s an AirPod visible which could hint at the impending update to both AirPods Pro and AirPods and you can see an iMessage reflection in the eye of the person at the front. A hint of big iMessage updates to come in iOS 15? Multiple MacBooks are also visible too, which could hint at an updated M-series chipset getting some stage time. Or, it could just be a tease relating to none of these.

WWDC 2021 Keynote

Unlike more product-focused Apple events, WWDC is very much about the developers and is usually the place we hear first about upcoming updates to iPadOS, iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. It’s also full of developer events, all which will also be streamed

We have seen hardware announced at WWDC before, however this is far from a given. The 2020 event, for instance, featured no new products and instead focussed solely on software.

“We love bringing our developers together each year at WWDC to learn about our latest technologies and to connect them with Apple engineers,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations and Enterprise and Education Marketing. “We are working to make WWDC21 our biggest and best yet, and are excited to offer Apple developers new tools to support them as they create apps that change the way we live, work, and play.”

What could we see at WWDC 2021?

WWDC is the event where Apple typically unveils the next slate of software upgrades for its vast swathes of products. We’d expect WWDC 2021 to showcase the next version of iOS and iPadOS, like iOS 15, along with the follow-up to macOS Big Sur.
The teaser for the event (which you can see above) doesn’t give much away, but it does show a Memoji character looking deep into the display of a MacBook. Could this be a hint the Mac will have a strong focus at WWDC? We wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case, especially as Apple has recently kicked off its transition to its own Apple Silicon chips.
Apple is rumoured to have a number of new products ready for release, including updates to its AirPods line which could be announced in time for Apple Music Lossless to arrive.
Other products said to be in the pipeline at Apple, which we may or may not see at WWDC, include a 14-inch MacBook Pro which could include an M2 chipset.