iOS 12 officially released now, but the news is doing the rounds that WhatsApp cannot be run on iOS versions older than iOS 7.1.2. Meanwhile, the company has not updated its end-of-support blog post since June this year, when it went on to announce iOS 7 and along with that, it also announced that the earlier versions will not be supported from February 1, 2020. But since then, it has published a new FAQ section that details the available latest changes to the version support. The company further went into details regarding the iOS 7 last version iOS 7.1.2 and said that the version will have some limitations about how they can use the app and said that the versions of iOS 8 will full functionality for now.
To be more specific about the change, the Facebook-owned messaging service, WhatsApp, said on its new FAQ section for supported iPhone devices by saying that “WhatsApp for iPhone requires iOS 8 or later.” It further says that those users who have got WhatsApp active on iOS 7.1.2 devices, they have got time to use the app until February 1, 2020. But the ability to use does not mean that they will be able to create new accounts or reverify existing accounts on the OS. It maintains its earlier announcement that WhatsApp is not supported on iOS 6 and other older versions.
The move by the company won’t result in affecting too many users, except those devices that have received not a single update after iOS 7.1.2 – specifically, the iPhone 4, which was released back in 2010. As per the explanation made by WhatsApp, these users will not be allowed to add new accounts or reverify existing accounts. And if the case is such that the app is already active on those devices, it will continue to work.
The model iPhone 3GS, which was released back in 2009 did not receive any kind of update after the version iOS 6.1.6 (released in February 2014), and this is no longer supported by WhatsApp now. Similar is the case with iPhone 3G (released back in 2008) and also the original iPhone (released back in 2007). The iPhone 4S, which was released back in 2011 and received iOS 8.4.1, which was also released in October 2015) as the last update for the version still retains complete functionality despite being about 7 years old. The iOS 7.1.2 was released back in July 2014.
Those using older version need to upgrade within the given deadline to avail the usage of WhatsApp.
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