Famous Instant messaging app company Whatsapp has announced that it will stop providing services to a particular category of mobile phones from the start of the year 2020.
Whatsapp Messenger is an instant messaging application supported on android and iOS based mobile phones. However, the company has recently announced that it will stop provide WhatsApp support for the android & iOS phones of old versions.
The versions of these mobile operating systems which are no more eligible for Whatsapp support are android 2.3.7 alias Android Gingerbread & for iOS 8 (Apple phones). Android is a mobile operating system provided by Google (Alphabet Inc.). iOS is another mobile operating system which is provided by Apple Inc.
Further, from the immediate users operating on these operating systems will not be able to create & verify new accounts. Further, users will not be able to re-verify old existing accounts in case they uninstall the Whatapp from their mobile phones. However, the service can be enjoyed by the existing users till 1st February 2020 if they do not uninstall the application in between.
The company updated its official website’s FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to share the news with the users. The company had already announced the suspension of the service for windows-based mobile phones from 31st December 2019. However, the new decision of discontinuation of the same for Android & iOS users has been recently made.
The users need not worry too much about it for many reasons. For one, these versions of mobile operating systems are too old and outdated and it is very rare to find users still operating Android 2.3.7 & iOS 8 based smartphones. Another reason to avoid any worry is that Android & iOS offers regular OS updates to phone users. Hence, even if by any chance you are using a phone which was based on one of the said OS, then you would already have got an update from the company. Apple (iOS) offers users with OS updates as soon as they launch a new OS.
You can check the version of your mobile phones by going into the phone settings and finding the ‘About Phone’ option. The details regarding phone model, OS version, ram, processor etc are available for the users.
The main reason for the discontinuation of Whatsapp for Android 2.3.7 & iOS -8 users is that these versions of mobile operating systems are very old and they do not support many of the new features of Whatsapp.
Whatsapp messenger app gets updated features frequently. This is why the company suggests that either you upgrade your OS version to newer ones. And in case you are not able to upgrade it to a higher version, then it is better to get a new and upgraded phone.
Android Gingerbread (2.3.7 ) was the 7th major release of the OS & was launched by Google on 6th December 2010. It was the successor and an improved version of its predecessor Android 2.2.3 alias Android Froyo. The latest android version is Android 10, which has been released in the first week of September 2019.
iOS 8 the 8th major release of was launched by Apple on 17th September 2014. It was the successor and an improved version of its predecessor iOS 7 & is succeeded by iOS 9. The latest version of iOS is iOS 13.1.1 and is released on 27th September 2019.
