Android 11's scheduled June 3rd launch event has been cancelled. Google calls it a delay, but the reality is that whatever plans Google had for the launch have now been overshadowed by a national spread of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota earlier this week. While Google did not explicitly name the protests as the reason for the delay, the implication of the tweet, embedded below, was obvious.

Google had already been forced to call off Google I/O, where Android 11 was first set to get its official reveal, due to the coronavirus pandemic over two months ago. While it seems small in the light of very big events happening in this country right now, the scale of Google's cancellations in 2020 are truly without precedent. Not since Hurricane Sandy cancelled the launch of the Galaxy Nexus in 2012 has there been quite a major disruption of the company's launch plans, and it's clear that 2020 is making Sandy look like a footnote by comparison.

Google will likely reschedule the Android 11 Beta Launch Show for another time this summer, though exactly when remains totally unclear at this time, and we're not inclined to speculate. It's also not yet clear what this means for the launch of the upcoming Pixel 4a, a phone which has already been substantially delayed given it was largely expected to have been announced at what would have been Google I/O several weeks ago.

We'll update you as we learn more, when we learn it, but for now, Android 11 probably isn't the most pressing concern, and it's understandable Google doesn't want to seem like everything's business as usual (as if COVID-19 hadn't already ended business as usual) while the nation grapples with some intense and controversial issues.

Source: Twitter