WhatsApp has announced plans to stop supporting iPhones running iOS versions earlier than 15.1 starting in May 2025. The move will notably affect owners of iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus . As these devices are incompatible with the application, customers will need to purchase a new model.
WhatsApp stops support for iOS 12, iOS 13 and iOS 14
WhatsApp has made it clear to its users that starting next year, users with an iOS version older than 15.1 will no longer be able to use the app. People who signed up for the beta through TestFlight all saw an information pop-up.
From May 5, 2025, users of these older models will lose access to WhatsApp’s encrypted messaging services. To maintain this access, an upgrade to a newer iPhone model capable of running iOS 15.1 or later is required.
Since January 1, 2023, WhatsApp supports iOS 12 and above, but the next update will therefore require at least iOS 15.1. This announcement comes with a five-month grace period, intended to help users upgrade or explore other options if their current hardware cannot support newer updates.
Fortunately for people in this situation, Meta messaging offers a chat transfer feature allowing users to save their history to iCloud. Detailed steps for this process are available in the help center WhatsApp, facilitating seamless transfer of data to a new device.
A logical reason
The reason behind this decision is rooted in the need to use the latest iOS APIs and technological advancements for new features. By phasing out support for older versions, WhatsApp can clean up its application and introduce innovations previously inaccessible to developers.
While iOS 18 is widely available, WhatsApp has likely estimated that only a small fraction of its user base is still running on these older versions of iOS. An acceptable “loss”…
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