​You Might Be About To Lose WhatsApp On New Year’s Day If You’ve Got A Phone Of A Certain Age

What did we all do without WhatsApp? Without it you'd have to waste 10p sending a text to your mates, and even then you'd have to send it to each of them individually. Whereas, now, you can just send it to the group, and also not have to worry about government spooks getting into your weekend sesh plans because of its end-to-end encryption.

However, if you've got a phone over a certain age you might be about to be plummeted back into the dark ages as WhatsApp has announced that as of New Year's Eve it will no longer be available on phones that run on certain operating systems.

This should only worry you if you have a Blackberry or a Windows 8 operating system on your phone, and - let's face it - that's not the only thing you need to be worried about, as they are both awful.

WhatsApp

Credit: PA

The popular messaging app announced this move as a look forward to the future, suggesting that it will only be looking to be compatible with iOS and Android going forward.

The company said: "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."

WhatsApp is used by over a billion people worldwide - a large number of whom presumably have a phone that is going to be incompatible on 31 December.

bugs bunny phone

But we are assured that this is happening for our protection. WhatsApp needs to keep moving with the times to ensure that security is kept up to date. This is more important than ever, especially if you are an Olympic cyclist, or the president of the USA.

Unlikely as it is that The Donald is sitting in his presidential toilet tweeting on an ancient Blackberry phone that he got at work, come the New Year, he'd have to re-think his social media policy.

Luckily all Blackberry handsets now run on Android, so you'll have to own a pretty old device for this to hit you when you're trying to fire up the group chat lols.

To recap, if you own a phone that runs on Blackberry OS, Blackberry 10, or Windows 8.0 or older - get a new phone or stop using WhatsApp. In fact, just get a new phone.

Words: Tom Wood

Topics: Phones and Gadgets, News, whatsapp

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie