Whatsapp reaches an impasse with Symbian and BlackBerry devices

Whatsapp has decided to pull the plug on its relationship with Symbian and BlackBerry devices from December 31, 2016.

The company had made their intentions clear since March this year that they were in fact planning on doing so but have zeroed in on a date now. The instant messaging service will also be ending their support for devices still running on older versions of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

WhatsApp has already begun notifying its users on Symbian and Blackberry that their devices will no longer be supported at the end of the year.

They will also be retracting support from BlackBerry’s latest OS, BlackBerry 10. BlackBerry based devices are still in production unlike Symbian devices that are no longer being produced.

In a blog post, Whatsapp has stated that Symbian and BlackBerry platforms do not offer the capabilities that the instant messaging service needs for the updates and features they plan to offer in future.

Since it was founded in 2009, WhatsApp has transformed from being an iOS exclusive app into one of the most popular and crucial instant messaging apps with users all over the world on virtually every mobile platform.

Along with instant messaging, WhatsApp offers a number of features such as sharing pictures, videos, and user location.

Since being acquired by social media giant Facebook, there have been other major updates addressing user’s privacy concerns by offering end-to-end encryption for chats and also supports sharing of documents.