Facebook withdraws support from Blackberry 10 smartphones
There is more bad news for BlackBerry. After WhatsApp, Facebook also decided to end its support for BlackBerry’s mobile operating systems, including BlackBerry 10.
This means the Facebook app on BlackBerry phones running on BlackBerry 10 and BBOS versions 7.1 and earlier will stop working. All affected users will lose support for Facebook contact syncing, BlackBerry Hub integration and sharing on the platform.
The social networking giant has also decided to discontinue support of their essential APIs for BlackBerry. As a result, BlackBerry’s third-party apps will cease to function from March 31.
“We are extremely disappointed in their decision as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands (but let them know how you feel on social media, using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps),” wrote Lou Gazzola, senior marketing manager, developer relations at BlackBerry in a blog post.
“Despite this, we have worked hard to ensure our end users have the best experience in light of this decision, and are continuing to search for alternate solutions,” added Gazzola.
However, this does not imply that BlackBerry users will not have any access to Facebook. According to the support page, to continue using the social media platform, BlackBerry users need upgrade their Facebook application as of March 31, 2016.
BlackBerry will replace the official Facebook app with a new native app which will enable users to access the web-version of Facebook.
“Those wishing to continue using Facebook are encouraged to move to the web-based experience which will provide the most feature rich alternative,” reads the BlackBerry support page.
In February, Facebook owned WhatsApp also announced to pull out BlackBerry support for its messaging app. The WhatsApp support has also been withdrawn from other mobile operating systems including Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, Android 2.1, Android 2.2 and Windows Phone 7.1.