Here’s why your WhatsApp isn’t working
Wondering what’s up with WhatsApp? If the popular messaging service has suddenly stopped working on your smartphone, here’s why – and how to fix it.
Millions of users of the app will have found that it no longer worked on their smartphones from February 1.
The move affects anyone with a phone which uses outdated operating systems - that means anyone with an Android 2.3.7 operating system or older, and those with an iPhone iOS 8 or older. It means those users can no longer send and receive messages, make video calls, or receive photos and videos from friends via the app.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that most users will simply be able to update their phone’s operating system to continue using the messaging service. However, if your phone is too old to run a more recent operating system, WhatsApp will no longer run on it, and you’ll need to buy a new phone if you want to carry on using it.
The company first warned customers it would make the changes back in 2017, and said move was needed to protect users’ security.
A spokesperson for WhatsApp 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.”
It’s not the first time that the messaging app has had to cut off users for the sake of security. In 2016 it withdrew support for a number of older Android and iOS operating systems, citing security risks associated with outdated software, and on December 31, 2019, it pulled its app completely from all Windows phones.
First released in 2009, WhatsApp has more than 1.5 billion users across the globe, and has cemented itself as the most popular messaging app in the world.
The company markets itself on the security of its messaging service, using an end-to-end encryption technique to protect the privacy of its users’ conversations.
Initially conceived by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, WhatsApp was designed by Igor Solomennikov, who the pair met through RentACoder.com. In 2013 the company was valued at $1.5 billion, and had 200 million users. Facebook bought WhatsApp a year later for $19 billion – the single largest purchase of a venture-backed company in history.