The popular navigation app Waze is going to stop supporting older Android devices. This means that users of these devices will no longer be able to get new app updates and features.
This big change is coming out with the newest beta versions of Waze for Android, specifically v5.9.90 and later, which now need Android 10 or later. That’s a big jump from the current stable version, which needs Android 8.0 or higher.
The higher requirements have not yet been made official by Waze or made available to everyone, but beta users have already started to notice the change. According to reports from beta testers, the end of support for Android 9.0 is explained in a pop-up message in the Waze beta app.
The full text of this notice hasn’t been widely shared, but it’s said to make it clear that people who use older versions of Android will still be able to use the current Waze app, but they won’t get important new app updates, feature improvements, or bug fixes.
Long-term, this change means that the Waze app probably won’t work at all on these devices anymore. Right now, we don’t know exactly when this will happen, but it will happen eventually because the app keeps changing and relies on newer Android features.
This change should be made available to all Waze users soon, even those who aren’t test users. A beta version usually turns into a stable public release in one or two weeks.
This update has been going around since late July, according to APKMirror, a popular site for Android app packages. However, the Google Play Store has not yet included these new requirements in its stable releases.
Google Maps, which is also a popular navigation app, continues to support Android 8.0 and higher, which is different from what Waze has decided. This difference in compatibility could affect what users choose, especially those who have older devices.
Early this year’s data showed that about 5.8% of Android devices around the world were still running Android 9.0 or an older version. This percentage might not seem like much, but it still means that millions of Waze users will be affected by the next update.
These users will have to decide whether to get a new device and give up new Waze features, or they can switch to a different navigation app that works with their current operating system.
