2016 will be the last year that WhatsApp would be available for BlackBerryOS and Symbian-using smartphones as the company announced that it will be dropping support for both OS-es this year.
“When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of moile devices looked very different from today. The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time. As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platformsthe vast majority of people use,” reads an announcement.
By the end of 2016, WhatsApp will no longer be supporting BBOS, as well as Nokia S40 and Symbian S60. Those aren’t the only OS-es that will stop receiving support from WhatsApp as Android 2.1, Android 2.2, and Windows 7.1 devices will no longer be supported as well.
If you’re a BlackBerry user who wishes to continue using WhatsApp, you could opt for the Priv, the company’s first Android-powered smartphone.
Source: New Day Post