Last year in December, WhatsApp extended its support for the BlackBerry operating system as well as the Nokia S40. However, it also announced that itis ready to pull the plug for a number of older mobile operating systems, including Windows Phone 8 - the company already terminated support for Windows Phone 7 earlier this year.
WhatsApp is ending support for BlackBerry OS (including BlackBerry 10), and Windows Phone 8 and older versions on December 31. It is important to note that the app will continue to work on these platforms, but users will not be able to create new accounts or re-verify existing accounts. The Facebook-owned company also warns users that some features may stop working anytime on older unsupported devices, so it is recommended that users upgrade to a new and supported device.
Over the past few months, WhatsApp has added a handful of new features, including the ability to delete WhatsApp messages, real-time location sharing, and much more. The company also mentioned that the older operating systems don"t offer the capabilities it needs to expand its capabilities.
These platforms don"t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app"s features in the future. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer OS version, or to a newer Android running OS 4.0+, iPhone running iOS 7+, or Windows Phone 8.1+ so that you can continue using WhatsApp.
If you"re a BlackBerry user and want to stick with the company, you can move to any Android-powered BlackBerry device to continue using the app.
Users sticking around with Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile will continue to get updates, despite the fact that Microsoft itself no longer plans to add new features to the latter.
WhatsApp also announced that it will end support for Nokia S40 on December 31, 2018. Android devices running Android versions 2.3.7 get the longest timeline as its support is scheduled to end on February 1, 2020.
Source: WhatsApp via VentureBeat