In 2018, A Big Technological Change Will Affect These Apple, Nokia, Windows And Blackberry Phones

If you're wondering why your Happy New Year message won't send to your friends abroad via WhatsApp in 2018, this may be the reason why,.

As of 1st January 2018, the people at WhatsApp will remove support from all of the old smartphones.

Any new software update for the app from now on will not be available on these phones.

The phones that will be affected are Blackberry OS, Blackberry 10, Windows Phone 7, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1, Android 2.2, iPhone 3GS and iOS 6.

WhatsApp detailed the reasons why in a blog post in 2016.

"When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people's use of mobile devices looked very different from today. The Apple App Store was only a few months old.

"About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia.

"Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time.

"As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use.

"While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don't offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app's features in the future.

"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."

So, if you're still using these types of phones or systems, it might be time for a change.