WhatsApp will end support for BlackBerry, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1, 2.2 and Windows Phone 7.1.
"When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people's use of mobile devices looked very different from today," the announcement read. "The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time. 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."
Why is WhatsApp (and parent Facebook) getting rid of support for the older operating systems even though they still have some (tiny) market share?
"While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don't offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app's features in the future," WhatsApp explained. "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."
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Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 27 Feb 2016 21:43
