WhatsApp to stop working on some iPhones, Android, Windows phones

With 2017 coming to an end, WhatsApp has declared names of a few devices it will discontinue the app on by next month.

WhatsApp declared on its support page that some devices, including Android versions older than 2.3.3, Windows Phone 7, iPhone 3GS/iOS 6 and Nokia Symbian S60, will not be given access to the text messaging app.

Users having BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8.0 and older will be able to use the app until December 31 this year. Users with Nokia S40 will use WhatsApp until December 31, 2018 and users having Android versions 2.3.7 and older can access WhatsApp until February 1, 2020. Also, for these platforms, users can no longer create new accounts, nor re-verify existing accounts.

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However, despite continuing to use the app, some features might stop working at any time. It said, “Because we will no longer actively develop for these platforms, some features may stop functioning at any time.”

Stating the reason, the Facebook-owned app wrote, “These platforms don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future.”

It further advised, “If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer OS version or to a newer Android running OS 4.0+, iPhone running iOS 7+, or Windows Phone 8.1+ so that you can continue using WhatsApp.”

WhatsApp also reminded that the app could be installed on the newer phones only when the user had it uninstalled from the previous ones. “Keep in mind that WhatsApp can only be activated with one phone number on one device at a time.”

Furthermore, WhatsApp does not offer any way to transfer chat history from one platform to another. If the user wishes to do so, they can email the chat history as an attachment.