Earlier this year, WhatsApp announced that it would be ending its support for several mobile platforms including the Nokia S40 and the Blackberry OS by June 30, 2017. The primary reason why developers at WhatsApp made the decision to withdraw support for these old platforms in the first place was that they had intended on improving the WhatsApp application and bring in new features and options internally.
The support for these operating systems was to be cut-off by the 30th of June this year. Respite, although temporary, came to these platforms soon after the Facebook-owned service confirmed that the support has been extended yet again by a few months till December 31, 2017. This is the second time the dates have been pushed, and the latest announcement comes just ten days before the decided date, making the users of these platforms breathe a small sigh of relief.
Along with the Nokia S40 and Blackberry OS, support for Nokia Symbian S60 and Blackberry 10 platforms will also end on that date. However, other platforms including Android 2.1, Android 2.2, iPhone 3GS, iOS 6 and Windows Phone 7 will be removed from the support list by June 30, as per the original plan. WhatsApp will also be discontinuing its support for all Nokia S60 devices. This delay in the dropping of support should give the users of aforementioned platforms enough time to upgrade to newer versions of their respective OS.
WhatsApp initially stated in February last year that it would end support for old operating system platforms by the end of 2016 and encouraged its users to upgrade their devices to an iOS or Android version that is supported by the messaging service. The chat app has a 1.2 billion monthly active user base globally, who spend an average of over 340 million minutes making 55 million video calls every day, with over 200 million users in India alone.
