14 DAY TRIAL // WhatsApp is already the world’s most popular messaging application, but from time to time, the Facebook-owned company has no other option than to just drop the support for older operating systems as it introduces new capabilities.
In other words, without giving up on certain old versions of the mobile operating system it supports, WhatsApp wouldn’t be able to get new features, especially as the technology it relies on is exclusively available in the latest releases.
And November 1 brought such a change, with WhatsApp dropping support for Android OS 4 and earlier. What this means is that your phone must be running at least Android 4.1, though it goes without saying you should actually be on a much newer version of the operating system.
Just update already
Furthermore, WhatsApp says these Android devices should be able to receive an SMS or calls to complete the verification process.
“We offer limited support for Android tablets with an active SIM card and don't support Wi-Fi only devices. You'll also need a data plan in order to receive messages when outside the range of a Wi-Fi network,” the company explains. “WhatsApp will no longer support Android phones running OS 4.0.4 and older on November 1, 2021. Please switch to a supported device or save your chat history before then.”
While Android 4 was launched many years ago, it goes without saying some people are still running it, especially since the Android ecosystem itself is very fragmented. On the other hand, we have no figures as to how many people would be impacted by WhatsApp giving up on this OS version, though there’s a chance not a lot of users are running the application on it.
For what it’s worth, Android 4.0.4 was launched in October 2011, so it’s already 10 years old.