

The Ice Cream Sandwich UI has a cool, modern look to it that is in a different class altogether compared to the classic, almost timeless look of iOS and the bold and sophisticated look of Windows Phone 7. Ice Cream Sandwich lockscreen with Roboto typeface for the clock There are also some new animations and transition effects and a new swipe gesture that works across the OS and lets you remove items from a list simply by swiping on it horizontally. Google is using a new typeface on Ice Cream Sandwich, called Roboto, which replaces the original Droid typeface found on previous versions of Android. It has the similar robotic theme of previous Android versions and reminds strongly of Honeycomb with it’s dark blue theme and similar UI elements. Users can restore chat logs once they have the app installed on a compliant device.The user interface on Ice Cream Sandwich has received a great deal of attention. WhatsApp posted instructions on its support pages. If getting a newer phone is not practical at this time, users should save their chat histories. WhatsApp urges affected users to upgrade their devices before November 1. If it is version 4.0.4 or older and has no option to update, that device is unsupported. The easiest way to tell if the change will affect your phone is to look in the settings to see which version of Android it uses. For iOS, WhatsApp is a bit more stringent, supporting nothing older than iOS 10, which was last patched two years ago.Īffected devices range from Samsung to Huawei. So WhatsApp continues to run on Android versions as old as eight years.

It only represents a very small section of Android users (0.2 percent as of July 2020).Įven still, Android 4.1's final update was in October 2013, and Google ended support last July. The last update for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) was in June 2012, with Google officially discontinuing it in 2018. The reason is that these aging operating systems no longer get regular security updates. WhatsApp and many other companies update system requirements about once a year. The move follows the company dropping support for iOS 9 back in March.ĭiscontinuing support on older operating systems is nothing new. The new official standard is Android 4.1 (Jellybean) or newer. Starting November 1, WhatsApp will pull support on Android phones running Android 4.0.4 or older. WhatsApp users with older Android phones may soon find themselves cut off from service. Users planning to upgrade after November 1 should back up their chat logs before then. Depreciation generally applies to devices released more than eight years ago, like the Samsung Galaxy Trend Lite or the LG Lucid 2. Beginning next month, WhatsApp will stop supporting Android 4.0.4 and older.

PSA: Some Android users are about to lose their WhatsApp service.
