WhatsApp to End Support for Older Smartphones
BENGALURU: The popular multi-platform messenger app-WhatsApp will soon stop working for older handsets. The Facebook owned company announced that it would officially end support for outdated devices by the end of 2016. "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," the company wrote in its official blog.
The application will stop working on smartphones running Android 2.2 Froyo or older versions of Android, the 7 year old iPhone 3GS or iOS 6 and lower versions of iOS, and Windows Phone 7. Notably, the market share of these devices is quite low with 0.1 percent for Android 2.2 Froyo, and 2.6 percent for devices running iOS 6.
The company had earlier announced that they would end support for BlackBerry models and some Nokia handsets but the decision was reserved in response to large customer complaints. After the latest announcement, the company advised older handset users to buy a new phone or update to a supported operating system.
The alterations are possibly for WhatsApp to more deeply integrate encryption and other privacy services. Such technology stops messages from being read by a third-party and has led to WhatsApp facing criticism from governments who believe that WhatsApp conversations should be made public. The company is also likely to introduce new features that would allow people to edit or entirely delete messages after they have been sent.
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