A few weeks back, WhatsApp announced plans it will drop support for older devices and platforms by the end of the year. Old versions of BlackBerry OS, Android and Windows Phone will no longer be supported come 2017. The move elicited sharp reactions from users leading to creation of a petition on change.org seeking to convince Facebook, the owners of WhatsApp, to reverse its decision. Touting WhatsApp’s new status as “the de facto standard for mobile communication”, the petition states that more than 10 million users will be affected when WhatsApp ends support for the old platforms.
Today, Facebook released an update for Blackberry 10 devices. Upon downloading the update from Blackberry World, the app redirects to the web browser to access Facebook. Blackberry has issued a statement on its support stage stating that the BlackBerry Facebook application will cease to work on BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS versions 7.1 and earlier. The statement goes on to state that those seeking to continue using Facebook will move to the web. If you were considering not updating the app following these developments, users will as at of March 31, 2016, the native app will cease to function forcing users to move.
