Apple has rolled out iOS 26, upgrading its iPhone operating system, and hundreds of millions of iPhones are now affected.
Historically, when Apple makes a decision—especially regarding privacy and security—it pushes that decision to all users with great confidence. No one can easily challenge Apple in this area. That is why the current situation is surprising: Apple is effectively forcing iPhone users to avoid upgrading to iOS 26.
The expectation was that iOS 26.2 would be the final upgrade for iPhones, and it was widely assumed that iOS 18.7.3 would be made available to all devices still running iOS 18. Instead, every fix—including critical security fixes—is now only available for iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.
These fixes are urgent and critical because Apple has confirmed that iPhones are once again under attack. More advanced spyware has been found in the wild, targeting specific users, with the potential to spread much more quickly and widely this time.
It is surprising that Apple made this decision so late. iOS 18.7.3 is already coded for newer phones and could have been made available more broadly. More importantly, doing so would have expedited the update process across a wider Apple ecosystem, which is clearly capable of supporting it.
There has been noticeable reluctance among users to upgrade to iOS 26. The main concerns are Liquid Glass storage limitations and the usual user inertia that follows major upgrades. There is no official data yet on iOS 26 adoption, but estimates suggest that at least 50% of users have not upgraded. This indicates that a large number of people are still using iPhones running iOS 18, which remains the dominant version.