Kirk McElhearn:

Major events continue to be cancelled around the world, due to the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.

The first major event was the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, scheduled to be held in late February. Since then, Google and Facebook announced the cancellation of their developer conferences, and other smaller events have been cancelled as well. Yesterday, the London Book Fair was cancelled. And today, the news says that both Apple and Netflix have pulled out of SXSW, the annual everything festival in Austin, Texas, due to start in about a week.

And:

So what if Apple does delay the iPhone 12? I’ve long felt that the annual upgrade cycle for mobile phones is artificial and unnecessary. In the early days, there were big changes from model to model, but now we see tiny incremental changes, mostly affecting the devices’ cameras. What if Apple decided to move to a two-year cycle, starting with the next model?

Makes me wonder if coronavirus is going to change some basic behaviors. Simple things, like the normalcy of shaking hands. More complex things, like building a conference with the goal of putting thousands of people into the same room, and into the same room with key company personnel.

And, as Kirk points out, might coronavirus change events that depend on precise timing, as the yearly rollout of new iPhones depends on the stability and timing of the worldwide supply chain.