The instant messaging platform, WhatsApp, has announced that it would halt support services and stop working for 40 different phone models from 1 November.
The company, which is owned by Facebook, said the cease ion service would affect users whose phones operate on older Android or iPhone operating systems, according to the UK Sun.
The report read: “For Android users, you’ll need to be running Android 4.1 or later. And for iPhone users, you’ll need to be on iOS 10 or later.”
This means that a host of popular Android phones will lose access, including the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Huawei Ascend Mate.
Regarding the iPhone, the report read: “For Apple, you’ll lose access on an iPhone 4 or older.
“And if you’ve never updated your iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus or iPhone SE (2016), you’ll lose access until you update.
“That’s because they launched on iOS 9. But you can update all three models to iOS 15 – the latest version – and keep access to WhatsApp.
“Tech companies regularly stop supporting older devices. Google did just that with old Android phones for Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps.
“Sometimes it’s because it’s simply not cost-efficient to keep apps working on very old versions of iOS or Android.
“That’s especially the case if only a small percentage of users are running these old versions of software.
“Using outdated software can also be a huge security risk – so it’s important you update, or upgrade if you can’t.”
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