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WHATSAPP will soon stop working on millions of older smartphones.
The November deadline is fast approaching – and will lock some iPhones and Android phones off WhatsApp forever.
Affected users will need to either update their software or buy a new phone.
It’s possible that your handset may be too old to update, so you’ll need to get a new mobile anyway.
More than 40 different smartphone models are expected to be affected.
The deadline for the update is November 1, after which point WhatsApp will cease to work.
For Android users, you’ll need to be running Android 4.1 or later.
And for iPhone users, you’ll need to be on iOS 10 or later.
On the Android front, that means a host of popular phones will lose access, including the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Huawei Ascend Mate.For Apple, you’ll lose access on an iPhone 4 or older.
And if you’ve never updated your iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus or iPhone SE (2016), you’ll lose access until you update.
That’s because they launched on iOS 9.But you can update all three models to iOS 15 – the latest version – and keep access to WhatsApp.
Tech companies regularly stop supporting older devices.
Google did just that with old Android phones for Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps.Sometimes it’s because it’s simply not cost-efficient to keep apps working on very old versions of iOS or Android.
That’s especially the case if only a small percentage of users are running these old versions of software.
Using outdated software can also be a huge security risk – so it’s important you update, or upgrade if you can’t.