WhatsApp for iOS now free for first year of use

WhatsApp, the messaging app we all know, love and continuously use is now free, sort of. Instead of the US$0.99 (R10) fee, there’s now a yearly dollar subscription model in place that kicks in after the first free 12-months of use.

As reported by Techcrunch earlier this year, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said that the app will shift to an annual payment model to bring it in line with “how it’s distributed on Android, BlackBerry, Nokia and Windows Phone platforms.” Smart move.

The now free WhatsApp for iOS comes as version 2.0.1 launches on iTunes. New features include auto-backup of chats to iCloud and the ability to send multiple photos at once. Both updates will be welcomed by the WhatsApp community, and especially us as Gearburn tests iOS devices by the dozen and losing our precious chat history is a risk we no longer have to take.  To access the cloud backups just go to > Settings > Chat Settings > Chat Backup within WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is big business and has smashed through social media stats, proving to be more popular than Twitter. It even set a new record as 27-billion messages were processed in under 24-hours. And one of those messages came from you.

So get downloading! Hell it’s free, what more do you want?