One of the world's most popular messaging app owned by Facebook, WhatsApp, will stop working for millions of users by the end of the year. This is following the company's decision to discontinue supporting a number of old smartphones with aged platforms.
The messaging app owned by Facebook currently caters the needs of almost one billion active users. With its latest announcement, millions of users with older smartphones will be unable to use the services of the app including calls, video chats, and SMS.
According to a report by Mirror, WhatsApp will stop working on any iPhone 3GS and devices that are still running iOS6. This also affects iPads, which have not been updated yet. For Android users, Android 2.1 or 2.2 will not be supported by the app in the upcoming year. This includes devices, which are released from May 2010 until Nov. 2011. Furthermore, Windows Phone will not be supported by the app anymore since it stopped supporting its system in the year 2014. WhatsApp is also planning to drop BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60.
In the official blog, it says that devices with outdated software will be supported but only up to June 30, 2017. According to Yahoo! the main reason for this update is to encourage users to upgrade their handsets and to allow the app for further development. Newer operating systems are required for mobile devices to allow new features of the app to be available for utilization.
WhatsApp announced during their seventh birthday that it is ending support for several devices in the month of Feb. "As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use...," the company said, "this was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp."
Lots of users rely on messaging apps like WhatsApp to contact distant family and friends. To keep availing the services of this app, people might want to think twice about keeping that 'vintage' phone as suggested by the company. Tell us what you think about this news and leave your comments below.
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