PayPal has announced that it is ending support for its apps on Windows, BlackBerry and Amazon to focus only on two platforms – Android and iOS. The move will come into effect on June 30.
The company hasn’t offered any explanation behind the move. It’s not too hard to understand that it has to do with its extremely low user base on both Windows and BlackBerry in the mobile segment. However, including Amazon in the same club has definitely come out as a surprise to many.
Amazon operates the Fire OS that is a customized version of Android. It runs on the Amazon Fire series of tablets, and there is a sizable population yet reduced sale.
See Also: Google now accepts payment through PayPal in its Play store
“It was a difficult decision no longer to support the PayPal app on these mobile platforms, but we believe it’s the right thing to ensure we are investing our resources in creating the very best experiences for our customers. We remain committed to partnering with mobile device providers, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers,” Joanna Lambert, PayPal’s VP of consumer product wrote on the company blog.
The move should also come as a jolt to Microsoft’s efforts to make its UWP concept appeal to more companies around the world, enough for them to maintain respective native apps for the platform.
Sticking only to Android and iOS does make a lot of sense from PayPal’s point of view as both make up the lion’s share in the mobile space. The minimum requirement for the app to run on Android is version 4.0.3 while the same for iOS stands at version 9.1. Likewise, both the app variants will see an overhaul in terms of look and feel and extend to PayPal’s balance and transaction history as well.
However, PayPal made a statement that its mobile website would continue across all platforms and offer all the services that the corresponding native app would have provided. More specifically for BlackBerry users, PayPal peer-to-peer transactions can still be carried on using BlackBerry Messenger.
Similarly, for Windows, the PayPal add-in can be activated within Outlook, thereby enabling users to send payments from right inside the email app itself.
