Phones that will not use WhatsApp by February 2020

Isola Moses

WhatsApp, a social media network, has notified users of the platform worldwide of the kind of phones that will no longer work with the platform’s application by 2020.

It is an app which works across platforms. In fact, even affordable feature phones support the app.

However, a statement made they available to ConsumerConnect Friday, November 26, 2019, stated that every now and then, “WhatsApp does fish out a list of old phones for which support is discontinued, and if you have an old phone lying around as a backup, you might want to read on.

“The super-popular messaging app is basically ending support for a number of older operating systems which means that users won’t be able to create new accounts or reverify existing accounts on a number of old phones,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp on its FAQ page states that users of phones running “Android version 2.3.7 and older, as well as iPhones running iOS 7 and older”, will no longer be supported after February 1, 2020.

According to WhatsApp, this update should not affect you “unless you have an old iPhone or Android phone lying around as a worst-case-scenario backup.

But this is WhatsApp’s way of suggesting that they will not be supporting age-old phones forever.

In a tweet posted by WABetainfo, it is noted that “WhatsApp will also no longer support devices running on iOS8.”

However, users can still use WhatsApp on iOS 8, but will not be able to verify the account if they reinstall it.

The latest/updated FAQ WhatsApp also has asked “feature users to switch to phones running KaiOS 2.5.1+, including JioPhone and JioPhone 2.”

WhatsApp has been adding up new features regularly and some of these features require powerful phones and newer Android and iOS versions to function properly.

Features such as picture-in-picture video within chats, fingerprint authentications etc are resource heavy and require powerful phones with enough RAM and newer OS.

It has said that some of the phones will not be able to support the feature that it plans to bring in future, and that is why it is ending the support for them.

“We’ll no longer actively develop for these operating systems; some features might stop functioning at any time.

“If you currently use an older operating system, we recommend upgrading to a newer version…,” WhatsApp said on its Support page.