Yahoo slims down services, will require iOS 5.0 or later, Mac OS X 10.8 or later to access Yahoo Mail after June

Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to upgrade…

Yahoo announced that it will be ending support for Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Contacts will be discontinued for some older Apple devices as of June 15th.

In the case of Yahoo Mail, users with devices running iOS 4 or earlier will no longer be able to use their Yahoo accounts with iOS’ native Mail app. At the same time, Yahoo Contacts will stop syncing with Macs on OS X Lion or earlier.

Yahoo stated that the changes are needed to ensure the speed, security, and functionality of Yahoo services. People with unsupported operating systems will still be able to reach Mail and Contacts on the Web via mail.yahoo.com.

Yahoo also said it is planning to shut down a number of other properties entirely, most notably maps.yahoo.com, which is closing at the end of June. Maps will continue to be a part of Yahoo offerings, but only in relation to services like Flickr and search.

The company will also be closing Yahoo TV in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, and the UK, along with Yahoo Autos in those same countries except for Canada by the end of the month. By mid-month Yahoo Movies will disappear in Spain, and much of Yahoo Philippines will be gone, redirecting Web visitors to Yahoo Singapore. Even Singapore will lose Yahoo Entertainment come early July.

Pipes, the company’s Web aggregation tool, will no longer allow new Pipe creation after August 30. The service will come to an end a month later in order to let developers migrate any essential data.

Long story short, you’re going to have to move up to iOS 5.0 or later on your iOS device or Mac OS X 10.8 or later for your Mac if you want to keep using a lot of Yahoo’s services.

Now it’s time to convince your relatives that this is necessary, despite their protests of “But it was working before…”

Via AppleInsider and Yahoo