WhatsApp has announced that it will no longer support BlackBerry 10, Symbian and older versions of Android OS.
By the end of this year, WhatsApp will be stop providing support for older and unpopular mobile platforms like BlackBerry 10, Symbian S60, Symbian S40, Android 2.2, Android 2.1 and Windows Phone 7.1, official WhatsApp blog stated. Users with devices will either have to switch to newer devices or make use of other instant messengers.
WhatsApp was founded in 2009 and it was acquired for $19.3 billion by Facebook in February 2014. When the 7-year old messenger was launched for the first time, 70 percent of the handsets that were available in the market mainly constituted devices from BlackBerry or Symbian. However, the situation has changed completely as BlackBerry 10 OS is no longer and the Canadian company aims to switch to Android OS on its devices.
The demise of the Symbian OS came with Nokia's acquisition by Microsoft in 2013. Almost all Nokia devices were powered by Symbian OS. Now, 99.5 percent smartphones available with the users run on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. However, these operating systems only powered 25 percent of devices when WhatsApp had launched.
WhatsApp now aims to mainly run its WhatsApp Messenger on those devices that vast majority of people use, Crackberry reported. Earlier this month, WhatsApp had fixed yearly subscription fee that users had to pay to use WhatsApp Messenger. WhatsApp is now available for free for users across multiple platforms. Moreover, it does not show any ads to generate income through them.
One of the rumored features of WhatsApp that is yet to arrive is video calling. In December last year, rumors started swirling that WhatsApp will be adding video call service soon. At that time, tech portals had also carried a leaked photo in their reports that showed how the forthcoming video calling feature would appear. The leaked image showed the video calling feature for iOS WhatsApp users.
WhatsApp has not confirmed anything on when it will be adding video call feature to its messenger. The feature will allow users to make video calls over Wi-Fi as well as cellular data. The feature will seamlessly users to switch between the back and front cameras during an ongoing video call.