WhatsApp gains new features on iOS; app will stop working on other older systems

Keeping a very reasonable pace of updating something quite different from what it was years ago, the application WhatsApp Messenger now version 2.12.14 has arrived with interesting news.


WhatsApp Messenger app icon

In addition to having a more improved design to navigate between your photos and your videos (implemented by Apple on iOS 9), you can now share media from other applications installed on your iPhone, such as Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive. There are also new background image options (solid colors) and the possibility to zoom in on a video while watching it.

End of the line for the BlackBerry system

On a related note, messenger crashes on five platforms by the end of 2016.

When we started WhatsApp in 2009, the way people used smartphones was quite different than today. The Apple App Store, for example, was only a few months old. About 70% of smartphones sold at the time have operating systems developed by BlackBerry and Nokia. The mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft, which today total around 99.5% of current sales, were within less than 25% of cell phones sold at that time.

The company said through its blog that it now wants to concentrate efforts on the mobile platforms that most people use. Thus, until the end of 2016, no longer offer support for the app on the following platforms:

  • BlackBerry (including BlackBerry 10)
  • Nokia S40
  • Nokia Symbian S60
  • Android 2.1 and 2.2
  • Windows Phone 7.1

Facebook also claims that, although devices running such platforms have made an important part of the history of WhatsApp, they no longer have the capacity required for them to continue expanding the offer of resources.

The thing is really bad for BlackBerry

(via G1)