Facebook-owned popular instant messenger app, WhatsApp, will soon stop being functional on certain devices. According to the app’s FAQ section, there will be several Android and iOS phones that will be unable to run WhatsApp because of the company withdrawing support for older mobile platforms.
According to the WhatsApp FAQ section, Android devices running on Android 2.3.7 and older operating systems while iPhones running on iOS 8 and older will not be able to run WhatsApp from 2020. Users will be unable to create new accounts and verify existing accounts from February 1, 2020 on these devices. Along with this, WhatsApp will withdraw support from all Windows phones starting December 2019.
If you are someone with a Windows Smartphone and you want to prevent data loss post-December 2019, you will need to export your chats and pictures you want saved to your email based cloud account. However, WhatsApp will continue running for some phones that have KaiOS 2.5.1 systems, including but not limited to JioPhone and JioPhone 2. The company has also mentioned that the decision to stop supporting older versions will not affect a huge majority of users.
Just to summarise, The following OS will not be supported by WhatsApp come 2020. These include Android devices running on Android 2.3.7 and older, iOS devices of iOS 8 and older and all Windows OS phones from December 31, 2019. The app will continue support to devices which are running Android OS of 4.0.3 plus, iPhones running iOS 9 plus and select phones running KaiOS 2.5.1.
Also, WhatsApp recently introduced a call waiting feature for its android users enabling them to see incoming calls whilst being on a voice call, this feature was made available to its iOS users a while before. Another new feature update gave users the ability to choose who can add them to new groups. WhatsApp also brought a feature in for its beta users, through which messages on group chats could be set to delete themselves automatically without the users intervening to prevent usage of storage by unimportant data.
For the latest gadget and tech news, and gadget reviews, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For newest tech & gadget videos subscribe to our YouTube Channel. You can also stay up to date using the Gadget Bridge Android App.
