Heads up if you or someone you know is still rocking an older iPhone: WhatsApp is officially dropping support for several legacy smartphones starting this Sunday, June 1st.
As part of its regular update cycle, the Meta-owned messaging app is raising its minimum requirements.
Originally, the change had been planned for May 5th. However, it seems the new cutoff date was pushed by a few weeks and landed on June 1st. So starting this Sunday, WhatsApp will only work on iPhones running iOS 15.1 or later. Devices stuck on Android 5.0 or earlier are also being dropped.
In practice, this means WhatsApp will no longer work on the following iPhone models:
- iPhone 5s
- iPhone 6
- iPhone 6 Plus
Some reports have included these models in the list:
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone 6s Plus
- iPhone SE (1st gen)
However, these devices support up to iOS 15.8.4. So if they’re up to date with the latest supported iOS version, they should be good until the next WhatsApp cutoff update, which likely won’t happen for another year or two.
While these phones are long past their prime, some are still kicking around as secondary or hand-me-down devices for less tech-inclined users. That may not be your case, but with approximately 3 billion users around the world, the change is bound to catch a few people off guard.
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