Is yours on the list? This is what you should do.
WhatsApp is honestly one of the most popular used methods of communication these days because one can literally do everything, text, voice note, and video call.
One of the notable points is the fact that it works regardless of the type of phone you have, iPhones, Androids and so on, meaning it replaced iMessages and standard texts of course.
If WhatsApp is currently active on your iOS 8 device or Android versions 2.3.7 and older, you will only be able to use it until February 1, 2020.
Announcing the news in a blog post on the WhatsApp website, the company notes that because they won’t be developing for the aforementioned operating systems, the app could cease to work at any stage. Meaning that after February 1st, 2020, users of these phones will no longer be able to create new accounts or reverify them.
This measure is given with the objective that the company, now belonging to Facebook, can improve its service and the privacy of the application.
“On iOS 8, you can no longer create new accounts or reverify existing accounts. For the best experience, we recommend you use the latest version of iOS available for your phone.
We don’t explicitly restrict the use of jailbroken or unlocked devices. However, because these modifications might affect the functionality of your device, we can’t provide support for devices using modified versions of the iPhone’s operating system.”
Previously for Whatsapp to work on older devices, the company had to create a special update for the smartphones with the operating system mentioned. But the Facebook-owned app will no longer support them.
WhatsApp recommends changing to either Android running OS 4.0, iPhone running iOS 8 or Windows Phone 8.1+.
The company also mentions that Windows phones will no longer have more updates for WhatsApp after December 31, 2019. The company had also said that WhatsApp will not be available in the Microsoft Store after July 1, 2019.
WhatsApp has regularly been adding up new features and some of them require powerful phones as well as newer Android and iOS versions to function properly. Features like picture-in-picture video within chats, fingerprint authentications etc are resource heavy and require powerful phones with enough RAM and newer OS. Thus the company is ending the support because some of the phones won’t be able to support the features it plans to bring in the future.
“We’ll no longer actively develop for these operating systems; some features might stop functioning at any time. If you currently use an older operating system, we recommend upgrading to a newer version…,” WhatsApp said on its support page.
However, WhatsApp has said that its decision to end support of the Facebook-owned app for these Android phones and iPhones will not affect many users but only those people who are still using old Android phones and iPhones.
Unfortunately or fortunately the only solution for people with a device that has a backward operating system is to buy a new mobile with the updated software.
Also if you’re a hoarder and hold onto your messages from way back when… sadly you can’t export them to the new device. But, there is the option of sending your chat history in an email format (learn more about that here.)
How to know what version of Android I have
- Open the “Settings” app.
- Go to “System.”
- In the search engine that will appear at the top, type “Android version”. Click on the access that will appear in the search results.
- Then, your mobile will show the version of Android that you have installed