How bad are things in the States right now? Pretty bad. There’s the ‘Rona, a fun little friend we’re all familiar with, but there are also violent clashes between protesters and police all over the country — people are protesting violent clashes with the police following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.
It’s against this backdrop and, seemingly, for this reason that Google has cancelled its Android 11 unveiling and beta, which was due to kick off later this week.
Technology difficulties
We are excited to tell you more about Android 11, but now is not the time to celebrate. We are postponing the June 3rd event and beta release. We'll be back with more on Android 11, soon.
— Android Developers (@AndroidDev) May 30, 2020
The news comes by way of the official Android developers Twitter account, with the reasons for the postponement more hinted at than explained outright. The event was already drastically changed from its usual format — COVID-19 has turned all events into virtual ones and that’s what Google’s 3 June event was supposed to be.
The unveiling delay won’t impact the actual rollout of Android 11, according to 9to5Google. Those dates should remain the same, barring a gigantic meteorite crashing into Google’s offices just prior to launch (but Google probably has off-site backups so not even then, we guess). Q3 2020 was the original plan and that’ll still happen, but the various betas are pushed back by a month each — which was the plan before the protests derailed Google’s schedule. There are four planned betas before Android 11 lands in the States later this year — likely in September. South Africa, as usual, will have to wait a little longer than everyone else to get their hands on it. Unless you take part in the now-delayed beta, of course. And have a supported phone, which is a far harder ask here in SA.