Millions of Android users face WhatsApp block – is | Tech News

WhatsApp is one of probably the most important apps for smartphone users within the UK and world wide given its ease of use and ubiquity throughout iPhone and Android. Many now use it because the default messaging service over conventional SMS or the textual content messaging app preinstalled on smartphones.

You could properly have been fortunately utilizing WhatsApp for years, however based on a new report, the Meta-owned firm is planning to drop help for older variations of Android, which might go away tens of millions of people with older gadgets unable to entry the app as soon as modifications have been made.

That’s based on WABetaInfo, which reviews WhatsApp is planning to drop help for Android telephones operating OS variations older than Android 6 on September 8, 2026. Given the most recent model launched by Google is Android 16 and Android 6 was launched in 2015, it is unlikely that the Android telephone in your pocket will likely be affected.

The newest figures from Statcounter reveals worldwide utilization of Android 5.0 is at 0.69 p.c – that sounds low, however as Tech Advisor notes, given the estimated more than 4 billion Android users globally, that would quantity to about 3 million gadgets.

So, in case you are utilizing an Android telephone from about ten years in the past, it’d nonetheless be working fantastic for you. But beware that come September 8, it’s attainable you’ll someday wake up to search out WhatsApp no longer works.

The solely manner round this will likely be to invest in a new, up to this point Android telephone. That;s in all probability a good thought regardless, as any telephones nonetheless operating Android 5.0 won’t have been receiving security updates for years at this level, and different widespread apps could properly not be working correctly.

WABetaInfo posted the beneath image it discovered when utilizing a future model of WhatsApp, which is how the publication finds new options and updates earlier than they’re pushed out to the lots. It says you will notice a pop up that reads “Later this year, WhatsApp won’t work on this device”.

It properly prompts you to backup your chats, which on Android you are able to do to your linked Google account. That means if you get a new Android telephone you’ll be able to add your total chat historical past and never lose any conversations or pictures.

The different excellent news is that fashionable Android telephones have for much longer software program help than telephones from a decade in the past. Even the mid-vary £499 Google Pixel 10a launched this 12 months will get seven full years of software program updates. Back in 2015 it was agonisingly regular to buy a telephone for that price and get only one 12 months of updates.