February 1st, WhatsApp Ready To Make Phone Devices Obsolete

WhatsApp is getting better and Millions of users of the app may soon have to buy a new phone under duress if they must continue to access the app.

For some time now, owners of the WhatsApp app, Facebook, have been expanding the capabilities of the app so that it’s numerous users may do more with the app, however, it’s coming at a great cost, millions of phone devices become obsolete at every upgrade.’

For instance, on June 30, 2017, the Nokia Symbian S60 became obsolete losing functionality with the app, then in December 31, 2017, the popular BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 lost touch with WhatsApp, on December 31, 2018, users of the Nokia S40 woke up to see that their device could not access WhatsApp anymore.

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The Windows Mobile OS which rolled out in 2003 ran on devices like the Motorola MPx200, it ran until 2010, however, due to the fact that it was losing ground on every front against the iOS and Android OS, Microsoft went to the drawing table, re-engineering its mobile OS into the tile-based Windows Phone OS, it still didn’t fare well for the Windows OS against the major two OS. So by December 31, 2019, the Windows Mobile OS kicked the bucket.

This tragedy is not yet over by a long shot, because according to the WhatsApp team by February 1, 2020, WhatsApp will stop supporting several more phones.

‘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 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.’

Beginning from February 1, iPhone devices that run iOS older than iOS 7 and Android device with installed version 2.3.7 or lower, will no longer be supported by the app.

Recall that iPhones 5S and iPhone 5C were the last of the iPhone series that had the iOS 7 installed way back in 2013, however, in 2014, the iOS 8 was launched, on the Android side, in 2010, the Android 2.3.7 better known as ‘Gingerbread’ was launched, however by February of 2011, Android 3.0, also known as Honeycomb took its place.

Often, when a device becomes obsolete, users of such devices lost some capabilities, for instance, creating new accounts or re-verifying existing accounts become impossible.

‘Because we no longer actively develop for these operating systems, some features might stop functioning at any time,’

The WhatsApp team advises that those who’s phones fall within this category to upgrade their mobile devices so that they can continue to enjoy the use and support of the app.

‘If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone to continue using WhatsApp’.

‘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’.