A few days after WhatsApp announced its discontinuation of service for older devices, Google seems to be on a killing spree.
The company announced on its blog yesterday that it will no longer support some older versions of its productivity suite from April 3. These apps include cloud storage management app Google Drive, a word processor called Docs, a presentation application called Slides and a spreadsheet application called Google Sheets.
All apps mentioned above are available on Android and iOS. The post says apps for both platforms will be killed-off.
Google will send push notifications to users who will be affected. The notification will ask users to update their apps to a newer version from the Google Play Store or iOS App Store.
Here is the list of the apps that will be killed:
iOS
- Google Drive for iOS (before version 4.16)
- Google Docs for iOS (before version 1.2016.12204)
- Google Sheets for iOS (before version 1.2016.12208)
- Google Slides for iOS (before version 1.2016.12203)
Android
- Google Drive for Android (before version 2.4.311)
- Google Docs for Android (before version 1.6.292)
- Google Sheets for Android (before version 1.6.292)
- Google Slides for Android (before version 1.6.292)
Google further clears that users on new versions of the app won’t be affected at all, and if someone wants to continue using the services, they will have to upgrade to new versions.
While new versions add some new features and refine the UI, In my experience, I have seen people refuse to update because they have an older device and new apps are a bit too much for it to handle. In some cases, users refuse to update apps because they like the old app that they have became familiar with.
That will no longer be in this case, Docs and other apps use Google’s online services and new that Google has decided to pull the plug there will be no way to keep using these apps.
