WhatsApp has announced that from the beginning of 2018 its application will no longer be supported on BlackBerry operating systems and on Microsoft's Windows Phone. The decision was announced a few days before the end of 2017 and surprised several users, who won't have much time to change their devices if they want to continue using the messaging system. The decision was made by WhatsApp to focus on the most recent and popular operating systems, abandoning those that are outdated or with few users. In fact, at the end of last year WhatsApp had already announced the interruption of support for various Nokia and BlackBerry models, including the BB10 system, which however had continued to work.
In the WhatsApp announcement he explains that on these models “it will no longer be possible to create a new WhatsApp account, nor to re-verify an existing account”:
• BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10 starting from January 1, 2018;
• Windows Phone 8.0 and earlier starting from January 1, 2018;
• Nokia S40 from January 1, 2019;
• Android versions 2.3.7 and earlier from February 2, 2020.
The end of support does not imply that the application will stop working from next January 1st, but that WhatsApp will no longer publish updates for them and may gradually reduce functionality or some may stop working.
BlackBerry owners will then need to upgrade to a newer model, which uses Android. Windows Phone 10 owners shouldn't have any particular problems and will still receive updates, but it is likely that support will be discontinued for them in the future as Microsoft no longer provides developments for that operating system.
