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November 1 is the farewell day to WhatsApp for millions of smartphones around the world: it can no longer be used and, in almost all cases, there will be no way to remedy this situation. Unlike what one might believe, in fact, WhatsApp "does not last forever" and smartphones, from one day to the next, can become incompatible with the most used chat app in the world.
This is exactly what happens on 1 November 2021 to all smartphones, without exception, which still have the old Android 4.0.4 operating system, released by Google in March 2012 and currently in use on 2-3 million smartphones in the world, including Italy. On these smartphones there is nothing more to do: WhatsApp no longer works starting from November because, simply, the app no longer supports that operating system and now requires at least Android 4.1. This indirectly means that if the phone can be updated to at least Android 4.1, then you can continue to use WhatsApp.
Who will have to say goodbye to WhatsApp
It will be said: who still has a phone with a 2012 operating system? In theory none, but in practice this is not the case. The most frequent case is that of the old "spare" phone, left in a drawer for years and pulled out only because the new phone broke.
While waiting for the repair, or for the arrival of another smartphone to replace the broken one, you use the old one and find it with the old version of Android present when that phone was placed in the drawer.
At this point there are two hypotheses: that phone has Android 4.0.4 but it can be updated to a more recent version (because in the meantime the manufacturer has released it) or it cannot be updated. In the latter case, goodbye WhatsApp.
Why WhatsApp no longer supports phones
The problem is always the same and has two sides: the economic one and the cyber security one. Releasing continuous updates for phones costs manufacturers and also a lot, in fact not all brands are punctual in releasing monthly updates (as Google does with its Pixel phones).
For WhatsApp, likewise, it is a huge cost to develop an app that is compatible with all the old combinations of phones and versions of Android that exist in the world. So, some versions are simply no longer supported every year.
Then there is a positive implication on security: WhatsApp is one of the possible vehicles for malware infection for a smartphone and using it on phones with an unsafe operating system (because an outdated operating system is not safe at all) is dangerous. Also in this case, therefore, it is better to leave out the old phones with old versions of operating systems, in order not to risk that they become a very dangerous vehicle of contagion for others as well.