Despite being one of the most popular and widely used instant messaging app, the company plans on discontinuing services to millions of users.
According to reports, WhatsApp will cut support to many of the devices running older version at the end of this year. Which essentially means that starting from January 1, 2017 users of such phones would not be able to send or receive messages using the WhatsApp Messenger.
For starters, smartphones tablets running on Android 2.1 or 2.2 operating system will not be supported by WhatsApp after year end. Similarly, the messenger will not work on any iPhone 3GS or any other Apple handset running iOS 6 and lower. Also first, second, third or fourth generation iPad that has not been updated to iOS 9.3 will lose out on the service.
Surprisingly, WhatsApp has extended BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40 and Nokia Symbian S60 smartphones until June 30, 2017. The company has requested users to upgrade their handset to continue using the WhatsApp Messenger services.
Speaking about the move, a spokesperson for WhatsApp said, “While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they do not offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future. 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.”
