WhatsApp management has decided to withdraw support for certain smartphones and operating systems after December 31, 2019 from all over the world.
WhatsApp ends support for older iPhones and Android smartphones and all Windows Mobile devices as a result millions of phones would stop functioning WhatsApp.
Users of these operating systems are already unable to create new WhatsApp accounts or re-verify existing accounts.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed the news regarding termination of support for older smartphones by WhatsApp.
WhatsApp management said in post that “when they started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today. The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft which account for 99.5 percent of sales today were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time”.
WhatsApp has already ended support for BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, Windows Phone 7 and iPhone 3GS/iOS 6 by the end of 2016.
WhatsApp has been gradually phasing out support for various smartphone platforms that don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future.