Xperia X vs. Whatsapp requiring Android 5.0 now

Applications
#1

So today Whatsapp refused to start any more for me, telling me that the installed version has expired. Sure, has happened often enough, so download a new version and install it - but this time, I couldn’t because the current version now requires Android 5.0, and I’m still running on the Xperia X with its 4.4 support. I managed to find an apk from April that hasn’t expired yet, but I don’t really expect this to buy me more than a few days or at best weeks before it also expires.

So have people found good ways to deal with this? Throwing away perfectly working hardware because of this would feel really unfortunate. Switching the device back to Android (if that would even succeed) and getting used to a whole new OS isn’t my favourite option either.

Is it possible to override version requirements and force install the newer apk? May that would keep mostly working and only newer features might see breakage?

Or are there ways to convince the older version of Whatsapp to continue working after the official expiration date?

I suppose the situation with unofficial clients hasn’t improved much? I seem to remember that back in day Whatsapp was very ban happy with unofficial clients and development didn’t really continue because of that.

Any other ideas?

2 Likes
Whatsapp stopped working, can't even (re) install for xperia x
#2

Jolla dropped silently Xperia X support long time ago. So I’m looking for an other 5-inch device.

#3

@kwolf First of all, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT (not a developer); I have used the tools listed here only to fiddle with icons.

The only suggestion I can think about is quite complicated:

  1. Get the .apk from somewhere (I prefer this site);
  2. Open it with either one of these tools: APK Editor, or Apktool (both seem to be FOSS, so they should be safe);
  3. Edit the .apk you downloaded: in APK Editor, under Manifest, you should be able to change the SDK Value to something that works (Xperia X should be 19). Save the .apk saying OK to the message that appears.
  4. Try the .apk you now have on your phone and hope for the best.

@Objectifnul Oh, c’mon! :wink: They didn’t drop it: it’s just physically impossible to update for hardware reasons, AFAIK.

Edit: typo

1 Like
#4

As I could always read here in the forum, this is not hardware-related.
So it’s just software and jolla manpower related.
A new kernel would have to be used and adapted for this. Jolla lacks the capacity for that. The user would then have to flash the software completely again because of the new kernel. (that’s how I remember it.). They also wanted to save users the effort of re-flashing and protect them from data loss ;-). You have to keep in mind that we all had to somehow flash our xperias with sailfish first.

#5

Can waydroid not maybe help there?

#6

No. It has the same limitations as the newer Android App Support solution.

Maybe dump this silly proprietary service if keeping a 6+ year old phone running is so important.

6 Likes
#7

But what if ecology and friends (yeah, even if they use silly services) are both important? :cry:
My X has its screen broken since 9+ months so I was already looking at second hand 10 iii, but this could be the trigger :confused:

#8

I cannot understand why is it jolla’s problem and not WA when they decided to drop support for old devices.

Technically woyld be feasible to upgrade app support for X, but financially would be a suicide unfortunately.

1 Like
#9

You mean, waydroid doesn’t run on Xperia X?

#10

No. Neither dropped nor silently.

2 Likes
#11

Whatsapp not running isn’t the only problem with running old Android versions. There’s also one gazillion vulnerabilities, for instance.

But I agree with you that at this point it isn’t worth doing for Jolla.

1 Like
#12

Does anyone else find it problematic Jolla is charging the same amount of money for official sf on xperia x when the android support is not up to date, regardless if it not their fault?

#13

No, because they say that Android is on 4.4. And who wants to buy a new license for a Xperia X anyways?

4 Likes
#14

Not really the point who wants to buy. So you think it is okay to charge the same amount for worse working product if you tell it is worse? Interesting moral stance. They could either make it cheaper or drop the whole thing from store.

1 Like
#15

You are not forced to buy it, so Jolla can charge whatever they want. Sure it would be nice if the license for the XperiaX would be cheaper, but if the provided Android version doesn’t fit your needs, you could install Sailfish without Android for free.

4 Likes
#16

I’m not really interested in discussing (product) politics, who is to blame or whose problem it should be. Effectively it’s my problem, and the problem of other users using this combination, and I’m merely looking if someone else has already figured out a better way to move forward that they would like to share. I would appreciate if the discussion of pragmatic ways to handle it could be the center of this thread.

Thanks for the hint where the version number could be modified in the APK, this seems like the most actionable suggestion so far and I’ll probably try it out when the last compatible Whatsapp version expires, too. Not sure if this approach is going to work, but I suppose it’s worth trying.

#17

Correct. The limitation is not there just for fun.

Don’t let the small phone brigade trick you.
There is no real size difference to the XA2 apart from the 2mm thickness, and the supposedly “insanely huge” Xperia 10 series has a whole centimeter in extra height, that’s it.

5 Likes
#18

Well, I don’t own an Xperia X, so I can’t check. But the fact that Jolla doesn’t support AD>4.4 doesn’t necessarily mean that it is not technically feasible to have waydroid running, does it?

It doesn’t exclude by itself that waydroid might be able to run.

Of course there might be technical reasons, I don’t know. But as AD and waydroid are different things, the fact that Jolla doesn’t support it means automatically that it isn’t possible.

Therefore it would be nice/helpful to offer an explanation instead of a paternalistic if-I-say-it-can’t-be-done-then-it-is.

#19

No.

(Twenty Characters)

1 Like
#20

No, nobody is forcing you to spend outdated money on something.