Early last year, WhatsApp announced that it would be dropping support for older platforms. These included Symbian and BlackBerry OS. Older versions of Android like version 2.1 (Eclair) and 2.2 (Froyo) were also to be dropped by the end of last year.
In November, WhatsApp made an about-turn further extending the period for termination of support for older platforms to mid-2017. However, this change of heart wasn’t going to affect the earlier decision to drop support for older versions of Android. Eclair and Froyo were as such effectively dropped on 31st December 2016.
In what appears to be taking a cue from WhatsApp, Telegram has interestingly moved to quietly cease support for older versions of Android as well. The FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on its website have been amended to include reference to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as the bare minimum for any device despite there not being any public announcement by Telegram on the same.
Telegram boasts of over 100 million active users and this latest move, while significant, is unlikely to affect a huge chunk of users. After all, there are only slightly over 1% of people using devices running versions of Android below 4.0 (Honeycomb, 3.x, Gingerbread 2.3.x, Froyo 2.2 and earlier) and it’s still anyone’s guess how many of such people actively use Telegram.
