PSA: Millions of users will lose access to WhatsApp in 2020

With a reported user base of 1.5 billion spanning over 180 countries, WhatsApp is an instant messaging service that is utilised by people across multiple platforms—Android, iOS, and even Windows Phone.

However, the company has updated their FAQ section to announce that users of Windows Phones will not be able to use WhatsApp from the 1st of January 2020, and that “WhatsApp might not be available in the Microsoft Store after July 1, 2019”.

However, what’s slightly more worrying is that devices running older versions of Android and iOS will also lose access to the service from February 1, 2020.

Smartphones running versions older than Android 2.3.7 or iOS 8 will also lose access to WhatsApp after January 2020—till then, you’ll be able to continue using WhatsApp, although you can no longer create new accounts or re-verify existing accounts.

Based on the latest versions of Android or iOS versions supported on certain smartphones, the more prominent models expected to be affected are the iPhone 4, the Google Nexus One, and of course, all Windows Phone models.

WhatsApp also says that they recommend using devices running on Android 4.0.3 and newer, iOS 9 and newer, and select phones running KaiOS 2.5.1 and newer, including the JioPhone and JioPhone 2.

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