A new feature is currently making its way through WhatsApp. On some profiles, users discovered a strange blue circle.
In the messenger service WhatsApp, some users have had blue circles around their profile pictures for a few days. Since then, there has been a lot of uncertainty, because what the circles are supposed to mean was previously unclear. “today“White: WhatsApp is testing a new form of notification with the blue circles. In the future, they should show when a user has published a new status message on WhatsApp – similar to the color circle on Instagram Stories.
Meta thus intermeshes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp even more closely and transfers the Instagram notification feature directly to the WhatsApp contact list. This means that the status message notifications can no longer only be viewed via the profile picture tab, but also directly in the contact list. However, the feature has not yet been rolled out for all WhatsApp users, this should happen gradually over the next few weeks.
New wave of shutdowns coming
The most used messenger in the world is also about to update its system requirements again. With previous updates, millions of devices lost access to WhatsApp, this time the step is even broader. From October 2022, millions of smartphone users will either have to do without WhatsApp or switch to a new smartphone. At that time, WhatsApp surprisingly announced the end of support for the messenger on a number of smartphones.
According to the usually well-informed Wabetainfo portal, the Apple operating systems iOS 10 and iOS 11 or the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5C are affected, and WhatsApp will no longer support them from October 24th. For the other operating systems, the minimum requirement remains for the time being Android version 4.1 and KaiOS 2.5.0 including JioPhone and JioPhone 2. But a new deadline is also expected for Android users soon. Not all affected devices – especially the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5C – can be updated and thus lose access.
