The end of Windows Phone is getting closer, even though some users still enjoy the family devices and the mobile operating system of Microsoft. After losing support for several widely used applications, such as Instagram, the most famous messenger app in the world has indicated a date to close activities there.
According to WhatsApp’s own online FAQ, the app will be removed from the Microsoft Windows Mobile Store on July 1, 2019. Because development is no longer encouraged by the company itself, many features may stop working from that date
The closure of the support will take place on December 31 of this year. In the case of Android and iOS, support will remain quite active: in 2020, versions 2.3.7 of Android and iOS 7 or lower will no longer have standard development.
In the case that WhatsApp stops operating on your device, one of the possible solutions is to try to update the operating system. But if it is impossible, the only alternatives are to use similar applications such as Telegram or Messenger or buy a new device.
The company in 2016 devised a plan in which it reported that WhatsApp would no longer be compatible in the coming years with certain mobile devices that lacked the necessary capabilities to support some updates. “When we started WhatsApp in 2009, mobile phones were totally different from those of today,” the company explained on its official blog.
Facebook’s decision to end support for these apps is hardly surprising given the Windows Phone platform is officially dead. Even Microsoft will stop supporting the latest version of Windows 10 Mobile – 1709 – in December this year. The phones with Windows 10 Mobile 1703 will lose support in June itself. Many of the major apps have already stopped supporting Windows Phone devices.
It is unclear how many consumers are still using Windows Phone devices, but the number is unlikely to be significant.