In an official announcement made the company, Facebook is dropping support for older versions of Messenger and Facebook apps on all major platforms including Windows Phone. Wait, Windows 10 Mobile is not included, thankfully or surprisingly.
With over 1B people using Messenger every month, our team spends countless hours making it the best way to message your friends and family. One of the ways we continue to improve is by consistently introducing rich features, like voice and video calling, games, and bots for Messenger. Using older versions of apps means that experiences won’t work well or sometimes not at all. As a result, we are asking people who are using older versions to upgrade so they can enjoy more of the delightful features of Messenger.
Facebook is already in touch with the users who are still using older version of the mentioned apps and also suggesting alternatives for best Facebook experience.
You can quickly remedy it by updating to the latest version of app or update your device OS or migrate to Facebook Lite. In case, when all goes down, and your device do not support the newest versions of Facebook, simply browse to Facebook.com through your mobile browser.
By the end of March, we will be ending support for messaging on the following older mobile app versions:
- Android
- Facebook for Android v55, released on November 16, 2015, and below.
- Messenger v10, released on August 14, 2014, and below.
- iOS
- Facebook for iPad v26, released on October 10, 2011, and below.
- Messenger v8, released on July 14, 2014, and below.
- Facebook for iOS, released on October 10, 2011, and below.
- Windows
- Facebook for Windows Phone.
- Messenger for Windows Phone 8 and 8.1.
- Facebook for Windows 8 and 8.1 desktop app.
This is how people affected can keep in touch with their friends and family:
For people using Android:
- Versions older than 2.3 (Gingerbread) – Facebook.com through your mobile browser
- Version 2.3 (Gingerbread) – Messenger Lite or Facebook Lite where available, or Facebook.com through your mobile browser
- Version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above – Update to the latest app version
For people using iOS:
For people using Windows:
Sure, the action will not affect Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile users, but do they really support the Windows platform? I am not denying, we have seen updates for Facebook and Messenger, and that is all users have seen. Store numbers, that change with each update and come out featureless. No sign of voice or video calls, let alone the Messenger day. Sigh!
What is your perspective on the issue? Do let us know in the comment section below.
