Bad news for people who aren't super up to date with their mobile phones: WhatsApp, the free messaging app, is going to stop working for some of you, from as soon as January 1, 2018.
According to an update made to an old blog post, the company will cease operations on a number of operating systems and handsets.
"When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people's use of mobile devices looked very different from today," the company writes.
"About 70% 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% of mobile devices sold at the time."
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In an atempt to reflect how things have changed, the company is giving up working on BlackBerry 10, the Nokia S40, Windows Phone 7, and the iPhone 3GS.
Additionally, any phones running the following operating systems will also be affected: Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, BlackBerry OS and iOS 6.
These changes are effective starting on on New Years Day unless you're one of the people on the Android OS 2.3.7 or older, in which case you've got until February 2020 to update your phone. However, the company warns that features could stop working at "any time."
"This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp," the company says.
Obviously, this change affects only a small amount of phone users and anyone with an older operating system can simply update in order to avoid being affected. People with older phones, though, will need to upgrade to a new device in order to continue using this app.
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