It’s used by millions of people around the world.
However, WhatsApp will stop working for certain devices as of today. The decision is said to have been made it ensure the security of the people who use the app.
According to the BBC, the Android and Apple phones which only support outdated operating systems will no longer be able to use the popular messaging app.
The update will affect phones using Android 2.3.7 and older and iPhone iOS 8 or older. These are legacy operating systems, and are no longer updated or installed on any new devices.
Most of the people who have these systems on their phones will be able to update their devices, which will enable them to be able to keep using the Facebook-owned service.
“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,” a spokesperson for the company said.
The news comes a few weeks after the last update, which saw WhatsApp no longer supported on Windows phones as of December 31, 2019.
“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,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
“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. 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.”
And last month, it emerged that WhatsApp is to introduce ‘self-destructing messages’ in 2020.
The news was first reported by WABetaInfo, a tech site specifically dedicated to doing deep dives on new apps and updates in search of interesting additions.
Initially referred to ‘Disappearing Messages’, and now renamed ‘Delete Messages’, the service will let users to set a time-stamp for when they’d like messages to be deleted on the app.
The options available will include: one hour, one day, one week, one month, or one year.
