The PayPal mobile apps for Amazon Fire, BlackBerry and Windows Phone will be discontinued on June 30 — bringing the total number of supported mobile operating systems down to just Android and iOS.
While being quite stingy on details, PayPal said it was a “difficult decision” to shut down support for the said mobile OS. However, it promised better apps for its remaining platforms.
“[W]e believe it’s the right thing to ensure we are investing our resources in creating the very best experiences for our customers,” said Joanna Lambert, its vice president for global consumer product and engineering.
After the current PayPal app version has seen the sunset, users can still access the service through Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge browsers. Outlook, too, can use the PayPal add-in to directly send money from the inbox.
Amazon Fire and Blackberry users, too, can still log into the site through mobile web after the scheduled shutdown, with the latter still allowed to send peer-to-peer payments via PayPal using the BBM app.
According to the Verge, the decision for Windows Phone and BlackBerry is quite expected — but not the move to abandon Amazon’s, which runs on Kindle Fire tablets and the Fire Phone.
The development, though, can be interpreted as a way to encourage increased usage.
More transactions translate to more money received — the company, for instance, had a reported 1.41 billion transactions in the previous quarter, an increase from a 1.39 billion average. Total processed payments climbed 28.6 percent to $81.06 billion.
Accompanying the news is a call for customers to update their mobile app before June 30 to version 6.0, which was released in February and emphasized peer-to-peer payments through send and request money feature and balance/transaction history.
Currently supported by the latest version are Android devices running OA 4.03 or above, and Apple devices running iOS 8.1 or greater, iPhone 4S or higher, iPad 2 or greater, and iPod Touch 5th-gen or higher.
In related news, PayPal will also become less friendly to crowdfunding backers starting June 25, amending its user agreement to drop the eligibility of payments on those platforms for its Purchase Protection program.
