The tech experts probably already know, but for the rest of you, WhatsApp has announced in February that it is breaking support for older smartphones, which included the earliest versions of Android, iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7 by the end of 2016. Not long after this, we received some good news for all users of BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60 where WhatsApp announced that they will extend support for these phones until June 30, 2017. For everybody else, the support is nearing its end.
Now let’s calm those who worry because it seems that not that many phones will be affected when it comes to Android and the iOS universe. WhatsApp support will stop by the end of 2016 for those that are running on Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, Windows Phone 7, the iPhone 3GS and/or any other iPhone still on iOS 6.
For Android users, this means 0,1% gadgets that are still running on Android Froyo, according to Google’s own dashboard from November 2016, which means that anybody using the Ice-cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean do not need to panic.
At the Apple, according to their October 2016 data, around 8% devices on earlier versions of iOS (which includes everything under iOS 9 and below) will be affected by this. This means that anyone using iOS 6, for any reason, must know that support ends for you and your phone this year.
Windows 7 mobile phone users will all be affected by this end of support in 2016. As mentioned above WhatsApp gave some additional lifetime to the BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40, Symbian S60 and BBOS users and it will be just until June 2017. But most of you now are asking why is this happening? Well, the reason is simple, and we managed to pull it off the WhatsApp’s older blog where they are explaining that these phones don’t “offer the kind of capabilities” they need to expand the app’s features.
Needless to say, at least to all of you who use it daily, that this app with over 1 billion monthly active users, has become the world’s most popular instant messaging app. It recently got an upgrade in the form of video calling feature on iOS, Android and Windows Mobile, which allows it to be competitive to other apps like Skype, FaceTime, Google Duo, that are all centered around video calls. They stated that the video calling has end-to-end encryption just like their messages, text, and regular audio calls, and they are also due to receive some Snapchat-like features, which include a version of Storie’s. Not bad for them!
