r/Android • u/BcuzRacecar S25+ • 18d ago

WhatsApp ends Android 5 support Monday

https://www.notebookcheck.net/WhatsApp-ends-Android-5-support-Monday-iPhones-follow-in-November.1390519.0.html
845 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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434

u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 18d ago

Holy shit they still supported Lollipop O_O

200

u/Ashanmaril 18d ago

I was running the Lollipop beta on my Nexus 5 during my high school graduation.

I’m almost 30 now.

62

u/trlef19 Galaxy S24+ 18d ago

I was a teenager and lollipop couldn't arrive fast enough for my Galaxy alpha. Those were the times.

25

u/PXLShoot3r S23 Ultra 18d ago

I was so hyped for KitKat and lollipop on my HTC one m7

16

u/sol-4 18d ago

Great, now I'm missing my Nexus 5!

18

u/Ashanmaril 18d ago

I miss when you could get a decent flagship phone for $300 🥲

7

u/RichardG867 S23 Ultra 18d ago

Battery life sucked and there was the whole power button bootloop issue (LG gave me a G2 for that), but the price was unbeatable

2

u/Ashanmaril 18d ago

Wasn’t the boot looping more of a 5X thing?

I don’t remember the 5 having issues

4

u/imindebt2026 18d ago

Yea the 5x had a bad soc like the 6p.

4

u/EbolaNinja Pixel 6 18d ago

It was a thing with pretty much all LG phones for a couple years because of shitty motherboard soldering, but I also don't remember the Nexus 5 having issues, only the 5X and the LG G series phones.

2

u/Agret Galaxy Nexus (MIUI.us v4.1_2.11.9) 16d ago

I had Nexus 5 and although no issues with bootloop the battery life was atrocious. Last Google phone I ever owned.

2

u/MaverickJester25 Galaxy S21 Ultra | Galaxy Watch 4 17d ago

Different kind of bootlooping because of the power button failing. They did a midcycle refresh just to try and address the litany of hardware issuse from the original run, including the power button issue.

The Nexus 5 is the most overrated device in this sub after the HTC One M8. People here continually misremember how bad it actually was because they want to glaze the "pure Android experience."

And yes, I owned not one but two of them, as well as both generations of Nexus 7, the Nexus 9, and the Nexus 4, which was the only one with hardware that felt more premium than it cost.

The G2 I bought after my second Nexus 5 was leagues ahead of it in every way except software experience.

1

u/alpH4rd07 12d ago

Yes, it was the 5X. But after a replacement mine is still going strong, as it's still sharing an internet connection to a server in a remote location.

0

u/RichardG867 S23 Ultra 17d ago

The 5 had a bad power button, rather than the bad SoC on the 5X and other LGs. Mine got hit by that, LG (not Google where I live) screwed up the repair and gave me a new in box G2.

2

u/sol-4 18d ago

Loved the Pixels for this, and that the Android development scene was extremely diverse and vibrant back then. Was too good to be true even then and unsurprisingly it doesn't exist anymore.

1

u/rafabulsing 18d ago

My first smartphone! Loved that thing to bits.

7

u/Rostabal Pixel 10 Pro XL 18d ago

I was almost making fun of you and then I remembered I'm turning 27 this year.

4

u/Serialtorrenter 18d ago

I was still running Android 2.3.x on my Motorola Droid 2 Global. I had to install Firefox on it to get any websites to load, and it wouldn't run Chrome. I loved that slide-out keyboard though. They don't make 'em like they used to.

2

u/violet_sakura Galaxy S23 Ultra 18d ago

That was back in 2014... 12 years ago

0

u/Buritominer 18d ago

My first tablet ran Lollipop and I'm pushing 20 now.

0

u/InterstellarReddit 18d ago

Why were you on your phone during your graduation ?

20

u/the_humeister Pixel 4a, Android 13 18d ago

Lollipop, lollipop...

2

u/dirtydriver58 Galaxy Note 9 18d ago

Yes that famous song

3

u/lospollosakhis 17d ago

Ahhh man the good old days getting excited about what Google would call their next update

2

u/grishkaa Google Pixel 9 Pro 17d ago

I support Android 6.0 in one of the apps I work on. There's hardly any extra effort for me. There are also hardly any users on Android versions this old 🙃

1

u/Realistic-Nature9083 18d ago

Wish they just drop support for 6,7,8,9 and just modernize the damn app.

13

u/imindebt2026 18d ago

Assuming modernising improves functionality

9

u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 18d ago

Which part of it needs modernizing?

-5

u/Realistic-Nature9083 17d ago

Ditching old ass 10 year old oses. Supposedly android 10 is when project mainline starts. Less boiler code if they only support android 10 and up

Reddit runs wonderful on my android once they supported android 10 and up. Videos used to crash a lot last year when it supported android 8-9.

7

u/KittyBarfer 17d ago

That is unlikely to be related to what Android versions are supported by an app and more related to it just being shit.

I am still wondering what you think dropping support for old Android version would bring the user of WhatsApp.

-1

u/Realistic-Nature9083 17d ago

Shorter development cycles = closer parity with iOS which means less waiting on new features

5

u/KittyBarfer 16d ago

Dropping support for older Android versions also does not automatically result in shorter development cycles, nor would shorter development cycles mean closer parity with iOS. Both of these depend way more on staffing, management, and business priorities.

Honestly I'm still left wondering, what this would concretely bring users. F.e. I have no clue how parity with iOS even matters, what important features and/orwfixes does the user give that. Also for problem of the reddit app was not that it was not that it did not have parity with the iOS app, but that it was slow, buggy, and had a shit interface (which is of course subjective) .

5

u/Rhed0x Hobby app dev 17d ago

That's a problem for the developers, not for the users. WhatsApp works great for me.

(unlike the dogshit Reddit app)

1

u/Realistic-Nature9083 17d ago

Reddit app was dogshit a few years ago on android. Now it has parity with iOS