WhatsApp will not work on older iPhones and Android phones starting February 1st.
According to several mediaThe chat app has withdrawn support for some versions of iOS and Android operating systems. They also say there are "millions" of users on these unsupported devices who will no longer be able to use the app and create accounts. Pocket Lint contacted WhatsApp for confirmation. At the same time, we noticed this support page detailing which devices are supported.
It shows phones running Android 4.0.3+ and iPhones running iOS 9+ will still be able to use WhatsApp. Devices running older operating systems are out of luck. Also on this support page, WhatsApp warns: “because we have stopped actively developing for these operating systems, some features may stop working at any time.”
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Which phones will lose WhatsApp support?
Smartphones running Android version 2.3.7 (Gingerbread) or iOS 8 and older will lose support.
iPhone models
If you own an iPhone 6s or later, this does not concern you. If you own an iPhone 4s, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5s, or iPhone 6, you need to update to iOS 9 or later to support WhatsApp. If you own an iPhone 4 or older, you will not be able to update to iOS 9 and cannot use WhatsApp.
Android phones
If your phone was purchased after 2011, you should be fine. Older phones will need to update to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich.
However, if you are still running Android 2.3.7 Gingerbread and cannot update, you will lose WhatsApp support.
Affects how many phones?
Recently, Apple majority said that 88% of customers are running iOS 12, 7% are running iOS 11, and 5% are using earlier versions of iOS. Meanwhile, only .3% of Android users are running Gingerbread, according to the Android Dashboard. It's hard to calculate how many devices in particular will lose support, but we suspect that most clients should be out in the open.