WhatsApp has announced that it is phasing out support for its app on old mobile operating systems over the course of 2016. Those losing support include: Windows Phone 7.1 (7.5/7.8), Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, Nokia Symbian S60, Nokia S40, and BlackBerry (including BlackBerry 10).
It seems that WhatsApp"s developers want to move away from these old platforms because they don"t support newer technologies that the company wants to use to improve on the social media application.
The amount of people that will be affected by the discontinuation is relatively small. According to Google"s latest statistics Android 2.2 has just 0.1% share of the total amount of Android users, Android 2.1 - codenamed "Eclair" - has even less than 0.1% of user share, Google doesn"t even report Eclair"s exact usage figures because they"re so low.
Perhaps the most surprising OS to see on the list was BlackBerry 10. The OS is still receiving updates, its latest was pushed out just last month. The reason for the discontinuation of WhatsApp on BB10 is probably due to BlackBerry slowly shifting away from its own platform, to Android.
WhatsApp is advising its users, affected by the discontinuation, to upgrade to a newer Android, iOS, or Windows Phone device before the end of 2016, if they want to continue using the messaging service.