WhatsApp, a popular messaging application, has shared a list of devices that will no longer support its messaging app starting November 1, 2021.

According to News18, an international newspaper, the devices will no longer have support for the WhatsApp app and will be incompatible.

In general, these will be Android phones that are running on Android 4.0.3 or lower, and Apple iPhones that are running on iOS 9 or older. A user’s current WhatsApp update is going to expire after a certain date.

The Android phones list released by WhatsApp includes smartphones from Samsung, LG, ZTE, Huawei, Sony, Alcatel, and others.

iPhones, on the other hand, include the iPhone SE, iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S. For Samsung, the Samsung Galaxy Trend Lite, Galaxy Trend II, Galaxy SII, Galaxy S3 mini, Galaxy Xcover 2, Galaxy Core, and Galaxy Ace 2 will have lost support by November.

LGs Lucid 2, LG Optimus F7, LG Optimus F5, Optimus L3 II Dual, Optimus F5, Optimus L5, Optimus L5 II, Optimus L5 Dual, Optimus L3 II, Optimus L7, Optimus L7 II Dual, Optimus L7 II, Optimus F6, Enact, Optimus L4 II Dual, Optimus F3, Optimus L4 II, Optimus L2 II, Optimus Nitro HD and 4X HD, and Optimus F3Q will lose support for WhatsApp.

Further, devices from Chinese maker ZTE including the ZTE Grand S Flex, ZTE V956, Grand X Quad V987, and ZTE Grand Memo will stop supporting WhatsApp. Huawei’s Ascend G740, Ascend Mate, Ascend D Quad XL, Ascend D1 Quad XL, Ascend P1 S, and Ascend D2 will stop supporting the Facebook-owned messaging app. Sony’s Xperia Miro, Sony Xperia Neo L, and Xperia Arc S are included in the list, alongside other devices from Alcatel, HTC, Lenovo, and more.

WhatsApp is used to removing the support for specific Android versions. This is a common technique because developers always prefer to support the newest OS updates, and find it hard to always support old versions.

"When WhatsApp decides to remove the support for a specific Android or iOS version, the development team also sees how many users are on that version, and the decision is confirmed when there aren’t a lot of users using the obsolete operating system version,” WaBeta, an independent portal, said in a blog post.

WhatsApp advised users to switch to a new Android device on a supported Android version if their devices are old, to be sure to back up their chat history.

Recently on September 8, 2021, WhatsApp announced that it is also going to support chat history migration from Android to iOS in a future update, in case a user wants to switch to iPhone.