WhatsApp will stop working. The issue concerns old smartphones

WhatsApp will soon stop working on older devices. From official information, it turns out that smartphones, which operate on the Android system in version 5.0 or lower, will lose access to WhatsApp in October 2023. This is standard practice for a company that gradually "cuts off" from older devices with each update.

In the case of smartphones with Android version 5.0 or lower, the messenger developers' support will end on October 24, 2023, Eastern Time. From that point on, it will not be possible to use WhatsApp on them.

The Android system version 5.0 premiered on November 4, 2014 Eastern Time. It's been long enough that there are surely few users still using devices that premiered at that time. Some models that were available on the market at that time include the ZTE Blade A570, Sony Xperia M5, or LG G2.

To give an idea of the small scale we're dealing with, it's worth mentioning the data provided on the statcounter.com service. There we can notice that in September 2023, Android 6.0 users accounted for 0.35 percent of all Android device users. Therefore, Android 5.0 and older likely account for negligible amounts, pertaining to individual cases.

Using such old smartphones to run modern apps can be difficult, mainly due to the limited storage space and inadequate amount of RAM in the old devices. The lack of support for such old systems by the WhatsApp messenger should not, therefore, be a surprise to anyone or particularly worrisome.