A handful of Android and iOS phones won’t be able to run WhatsApp as the popular instant messaging app has announced to withdraw support starting February 1, 2020.
According to WhatsApp FAQ section, if you are using an Android phone running Android 2.3.7 or an iOS phone running iOS 7 or older, WhatsApp will not work on these phones from next year.
According to the information on WhatsApp FAQ section, Android phones running on Android 2.3.7 operating system and iPhones running on iOS 7 will not support WhatsApp from next year.
Additionally, users having smartphones running above said OS versions can no longer create new accounts, nor re-verify existing accounts after February 1, 2020. Thus, iPhone users are required to upgrade to iOS 9 or later, if they wish continue using WhatsApp. Similarly, users with smartphones running Android versions 2.3.7 or older will no longer be able to create new accounts or re-verify the existing accounts.
WhatsApp is also withdrawing support for all Windows phones starting from December 31, 2019, the same month that Microsoft announced to end support of its Windows 10 Mobile OS.
However, select phones running KaiOS 2.5.1+ OS, including JioPhone and JioPhone 2 are left unchanged with this announcement.
To summarise, smartphones running below mentioned versions won’t be able to support WhatsApp.
- Android versions 2.3.7 and older
- OS 8 and older
- All Windows OS phones from 31 December, 2019
The news comes approx. two weeks after the Facebook-owned messaging app rolled out self-destructing message feature on its Android Beta version. The self-destruct messaging feature will allow users to automatically delete a message post a certain amount of time has been passed which has been set by a user.
The feature is available on the Beta version number 2.19.348. If you aren’t a beta user and want to try out the new feature, you can manually update the app by downloading it from the APK available on APK Mirror platform.