Bad news if you’ve got an older smart phone, the messaging giant WhatsApp is going to be discontinuing its service on a lot of older devices pretty soon.
The messaging app company has revealed that it’s planning on slowly phasing out compatibility with older smartphones forcing users who want to carry on using their service to upgrade.
In a statement the company admitted that when the company first started in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today, The Express reports.
They explained:
The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia.
Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5% of sales today – were on less than 25% of mobile devices sold at the time.
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.
They confirmed that WhatsApp would no longer be compatible from January 2017 on the following phones:
- Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
- Windows Phone 7
- iPhone 3GS / iOS 6
Then later in the year, after June 30, 2017, they will end support for the following phones:
- Blackberry OS and Blackberry 10
- Nokia S40
- Nokia Symbian S60
While it’s definitely bad news if you’re using one of these older models there is some good news.
It’s likely that WhatsApp will be bringing out some pretty decent updates in the new year.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.