UPDATE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated WhatsApp had ended support for BlackBerry’s running BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 operating systems. WhatsApp has extended support for BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 until June 30, 2017.
Anyone who uses an older smartphone and relies on messaging app WhatsApp is off to a rough start this New Year. As of Jan. 1, the app no longer supports Android phones running Android 2.1 or Android 2.2 and iPhones running iOS 6 or earlier.
The move was originally announced in early 2016.
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“We want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use,” read a blog post, published in February 2016. ‘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.”
Anyone who has an Android phone running Android 2.1 or Android 2.2, a Windows Phone running 7.1, or an older model iPhone running iOS 6 or earlier will no longer be able to use the messaging app.
It’s important to point out that these operating systems are quite old – Android 2.2 was released in 2010 and iOS 6 was released in 2012 – there are some people who use older smartphones and are unable to update to the latest system.
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According to Google, 0.1 per cent of Android devices still run Android 2.2. But, according to Mashable’s math, with an estimated 1.4 billion active Android devices running throughout the world, roughly 1.4 million of those devices are still running Android 2.2.
So what do you do if you use one of these devices and rely on WhatsApp for messaging?
According to the company, the answer is simple – stop using it. The blog post concluded users should upgrade to a “newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone” before the end of the year in order to keep using its services.
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