It’s a week of bad news for anyone still holding on to a device that’s running on Android 4.4, which we widely knew as KitKat. Not only is the Android version which is a decade old barely being used by anyone right now (it accounted for just 0.6% recently), it now appears that WhatsApp is dropping support for it.
The upcoming change which will be effected in upcoming versions of the popular messaging app is said to take effect with an available beta version of the app signalling that that future is not too far off.
WhatsApp beta version 2.23.9.2 which will soon be made available to the app’s beta testers (it is being made available via the Play Store as of the time of publishing this), will not have any support for API level 19, as Android 4.4 is known as in the developer community. Android 5.0, Lollipop, will be the oldest Android version supported by WhatsApp going forward.
At the start of the year, the cutoff for having WhatsApp on a device was Android 4.3, Jelly Bean.
When it eventually becomes available, version 2.23.9.2 (beta) will offer a glimpse into a redesigned keyboard, making it easier for those who frequently use emoji to scroll through them in their various categories as the keyboard type (GIFs, stickers, emoji) selection bar moves up top from the bottom where it currently resides.
