The popular messaging app for more than one billion people has now ended support for older platforms to usher in new features. Following up on its seventh anniversary at the end of 2016, WhatsApp announced that they will no longer support Windows Phone 7 (via Neowin).
“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”, the WhatsApp blog post announced.
Of course, Windows Phone 7 isn’t the only platform that has seen support ended. BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1, Android 2.2, and iPhone 3GS/iOS6 are all heading into the recycle bin. Fortunately for some users, the expiration date for the more popular BlackBerry and Nokia platforms was extended to June 30, 2017 giving many people a little bit more time to upgrade their device.
WhatsApp’s developers explained that they are looking forward to adding more features that these platforms simply don’t have the capability of maintaining. Which makes a lot of sense given the app’s success.
This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer Android, iPhone, or Windows Phone before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp.
Hopefully, this means there will be plenty of new things to look forward to this year for WhatsApp. Just in case you’ve already upgraded, you can download the Windows 10 WhatsApp from the box below.
