WhatsApp is about to give up over five million of its users in a bid to clamp down on the use of old smartphones.
The messaging app is ending its relationship with a number of popular devices, just a matter of weeks after turning seven years old.
All Blackberry phones, as well as some Nokia and Android ones, are going to stop being supported by the end of the year, the company has announced.
In a statement, WhatsApp asked people to buy new phones by the end of the year to continue along on its ‘amazing journey’. Yeah, because we all have the money to do that, obviously.
They 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. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp.
If you’re a massive WhatsApp user and own a BlackBerry; Nokia S40; Nokia Symbian S60; Android 2.1, Android 2.2 or Windows Phone 7.1, you might as well do this:
Their reasoning is that the use of older phones could hold back the app’s growth, apparently.
They added:
While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future.
I can’t imagine this going down very well with their users, at all.
