In a good news for Nokia S40 and Symbian devices owners, WhatsApp has quietly extended support for these devices till June 30, 2017. As you can read below, WhatsApp had earlier conveyed end of 2016 as the end of support for Nokia S40, Symbian S60 and Windows Phone 7.1 devices. WhatsApp has now updated the original official Blog post to announce extension of support till June 30, 2017.
Now while support for Nokia S40 and Symbian devices has been extended, windows Phone 7.1 support still ends beginning of 2017. This has been updated in their FAQ page. Thanks to Nirav for sending this tip.
As announced in our blog, we will soon be ending support for certain devices. On June 30, 2017, we will no longer support the following platforms:
- BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10
- Nokia S40
- Nokia Symbian S60
The following platforms will no longer be supported at the beginning of 2017:
- Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
- Windows Phone 7
- iPhone 3GS/iOS 6
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 Android running OS 2.3+, a Windows Phone 8+, or an iPhone running iOS 7+ before the end of 2016 to continue using WhatsApp.
Once you have one of these devices, simply install WhatsApp and verify your phone number on the new device to continue using WhatsApp. Keep in mind that WhatsApp can only be activated with one phone number on one device at a time.
There is currently no option to transfer your chat history between platforms. However, we provide the option to send your chat history attached to an email. Learn how to export your chat history on: Android | iPhone | Windows Phone | Nokia S40 | BlackBerry | Nokia S60 | BlackBerry 10
Cheers,
WhatsApp Support Team
Original Post:
In a blog post, WhatsApp has announced that it will end support for a number of operating systems and it impacts both Nokia and Windows Phone users, if you are still using the now unsupported Nokia S40, Symbian, S60 and Windows Phone 7.1 devices. Since Microsoft ended support for all these platforms long time back, it may not be a surprise to see WhatsApp and even other companies doing the same. By end of 2016 WhatsApp will stop supporting the devices running these operating systems. In this article you can find the list of Nokia-branded S40, Symbian and S60 devices impacted by this decision.
But anniversary dates are also an opportunity to look back. When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile 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 platforms the vast majority of people use. So, by the end of 2016, we will be ending support for WhatsApp Messenger on the following mobile platforms:
- BlackBerry, including BlackBerry 10
- Nokia S40
- Nokia Symbian S60
- Android 2.1 and Android 2.2
- Windows Phone 7.1
While most of the users have moved on from Nokia S40, Symbian, S60 and Windows Phone 7.1 devices and since the WhatsApp support end is nearly 10 months away from now many more will move on. But if WhatsApp is not really a service that you can’t live without, you can still use your Symbian or S40 or Windows Phone 7.1 devices for some more time after 2016.
