The WhatsApp Messenger app is one of the top and most frequently used IM app among the mobile users. It has completely changed its looks and increased the engaging duration of the users by adding new features to it. It’s been seven years now since it launched and was owned by Facebook in 2014 for $21 billion. Right now, the Facebook-owned app will be implementing it’s previously revealed plan that it’ll not be compatible with the smartphone running on older Operating System.
That means the users with a smartphone running on iOS 6 or lower and Windows 7 as well as running on Android 2.1, and 2.2 will no longer use WhatsApp. Most of you need not worry about this move from WhatsApp since it affects very few people who are using the handsets powered by these OS. However, there are some of the operating systems which were supposed to lose WhatsApp support at the end of 2016. The BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerryOS models were expected to drop WhatsApp support by today.
Luckily, now the people using WhatsApp on BlackBerry models can use it until June 30th, 2017. Similarly, the support has also extended to both Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60 operating systems. It’s worth to remind you that back in 2009 WhatsApp launched at times where people’s use of mobile was different from today. Around 70 percent of smartphones were running on Operating System from BlackBerry and Nokia.
Whereas, only 25 percent of smartphones were running an operating system such as Android, iOS, and Windows at that moment. Right now, 99.5 percent of smartphones powered by Android, iOS, and Windows. The Facebook-owned app says, that is dropping support for the lower operating system is just because “they don’t have the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future.”
And, they also said this in a blog post,
“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…to continue using WhatsApp.” -WhatsApp.
