Whatsapp has more than one billion users, so if you’re reading this the chances are that you’re one of them! There is however some impending bad news if you are using a phone that’s running Windows Phone 8.0 (or older), Blackberry OS or Blackberry 10; the app will no longer work on your phone after 31st January 2017.
Whatsapp made the announcement in an update to a blog post that was originally published in February 2016, which read:
“When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today. 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 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent 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. So, by the end of 2016, we will be ending support for WhatsApp Messenger on the following mobile platforms:
• BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10
• Nokia S40
• Nokia Symbian S60
• Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
• Windows Phone 7
• iPhone 3GS/iOS 6
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.”
This certainly isn’t an uncommon move; websites are similar in that as technology moves forward it becomes more and more difficult to account for older and older browsers (which in turn make up an increasingly small proportion of users).”
Our advice if you’re running any of the systems mentioned above? Treat yourself to a new handset this Christmas or new year! You deserve it!