November 27, 2024, 10:22 am | Read time: 2 minutes
WhatsApp has cleaned up its act and discontinued support for some older iPhones. Anyone who does not want to or cannot update their system will have to do without the messenger in the future.
Although Apple usually offers updates for its iPhones over a very long period of time, there are some devices that do not run the latest iOS. This is either because the iPhones are so old that they have fallen out of supply, because users do not want to update their system, or because they have forgotten to do so. It is precisely these users who will have problems in the future if they want to use WhatsApp on their iPhones. This is because the messenger is adjusting its minimum requirement.
WhatsApp adjusts minimum requirement for iPhones
Until now, an iPhone had to be running at least iOS 12 in order to use WhatsApp. But this will change from May 2025. From then on, the messenger will require iOS 15.1 as the minimum requirement for installing the app. All users who do not have this or a higher iOS version installed on their iPhones will, therefore, no longer be able to use WhatsApp. The messenger itself provides information about this on its official WhatsApp FAQ page.
It states: “We currently support the following devices, which we also recommend for using WhatsApp:
- Android devices from Android version 5.0
- iPhones from iOS 12*
* From May 5, 2025, only iOS versions 15.1 and newer will be supported.”
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These iPhones are affected
On the whole, the WhatsApp changeover should only affect relatively few iPhone users. Most of them will be using their device with the latest iOS. Apple is only no longer offering an update to iOS 15.1 for models older than the iPhone 6s. Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus back in September 2014. This means that not only have they been on the market for 10 years, but Apple has also discontinued support in the meantime.
The latest operating system for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is currently iOS 12.5.7. This was surprisingly rolled out as an important security update in January 2023. After that, there were no more updates for the models. In view of the lack of security patches since then, it is therefore advisable to replace the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus with a more up-to-date model.