Check If You Can Use WhatsApp on Your Mobile in 2018

The popular social messaging platform owned by Facebook ditches these mobile platforms and its users.

WhatsApp has stopped working for users on multiple mobile platforms. 

(Photo: iStock)

Facebook-owned mobile messaging app WhatsApp has stopped working on smartphones that support 'BlackBerry OS', 'BlackBerry 10', 'Windows Phone 8.0' and older platforms in the New Year.

The social messaging platform had informed about its closure from these platforms last year, and it’s now official. In addition to BlackBerry and Windows Phone, they’ll also stop supporting the Nokia S40 platform by the end of 2018.

Users would be able to use WhatsApp but would not be able to create new accounts or re-verify existing accounts.

Time to switch. (Photo: The Quint/Canva)

These platforms don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future. If you use one of these affected mobile devices, we recommend upgrading to a newer OS version, or to a newer Android running OS 4.0+, iPhone running iOS 7+, or Windows Phone 8.1+ so that you can continue using WhatsApp.

WhatsApp Spokesperson

We can’t fault WhatsApp for discontinuing its support for the aforementioned platforms, which are basically a minority in the mobile OS segment right now, with Android and iOS hoarding most of the pie.

Having said that, the Facebook-owned messaging platform is making sure that if (a big if) any user is still using Android phone with version 2.3.7 aka Gingerbread, they can do so till 31 January 2020, after which they’ll stop working once and for all.

Also Read: Yes, WhatsApp Crashed On New Year’s Eve

The app didn’t have the best of the starts to 2018 after it crashed on users for over an hour in India and many other parts of the world.

On the very first day of 2018, it crashed, sending people into a frenzy. The platform reportedly has 70 million active users in India alone. WhatsApp services had been down for 30 minutes, ANI tweeted at 12:30 am on 1 January.