BlackBerry, including BlackBerry 10 Nokia S40 Nokia Symbian S60 Android 2.1 and Android 2.2 (Eclair and Froyo) Windows Phone 7.1
To put this news into perspective: at WhatsApp’s debut in 2009, the now defunct Symbian OS had the biggest market share running on almost 50% of mobile phones in circulation at the time. Research in Motion (RIM), now simply known as BlackBerry, came in at a distant second with iPhone trailing in 3rd place. It obviously made good business sense for WhatsApp to tap into this market and it has served them well. Shockingly though, by the end of 2010 the writing was already on the wall for Symbian which saw BlackBerry and iPhone shove it under the rug. It came as no surprise that Symbian finally became defunct in 2014 and BlackBerry too has been discontinued after the release of what is considered the last BlackBerry OS iteration: Blackberry 10.
The new game changers; Google, Apple and Microsoft to a lesser degree control a combined marketshare of 99% of all mobile phone operating systems running on Smartphone devices today which is a far cry from 2009. WhatsApp making the conscious decision to concentrate their resources on these brands by all accounts is the smart move. Symbian and Blackberry sadly have to go. WhatsApp had these last words to say in a press release soon after their 7th birthday: The silver lining to hold onto from this announcement is that the cost of buying a Smartphone steadily continues to drop while the specs in turn continue to get better and better with each new release. Affected users should consider this a gentle nudge to toss their old smart phones in storage -to show their grand kids one day- and get on with the new. Technology is ever evolving. You shouldn’t be left behind.
