If it's really as bad as all that, they'll patch existing older releases.

xoa 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>If it's really as bad as all that, they'll patch existing older releases.

They have patched existing releases of iOS 18... but then they artificially restricted those patches only to a couple of phone models that don't support iOS 26. So if you're on a vaguely modern iDevice and are still on 18 because you don't want the new UI and other fuckups you are not allowed to install the patched 18. It'd be one thing if you had a phone that simply never supported iOS 18 at all, or if Apple wasn't patching iOS 18 at all for anyone, but that they've gone to the effort to fix it but then also used it as another lever for force upgrades is really sucky.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-]

> you are not allowed to install the patched 18

Is it “you are not allowed,” or Cupertino isn’t going to bother developing and testing?

	▲	xoa 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>Is it “you are not allowed,” or Cupertino isn’t going to bother developing and testing? It is very firmly "you are not allowed". In fact you're not even allowed to switch back to iOS 18 at all. Only actively signed iOS IPSWs can be installed (barring historical cases where someone had saved signing tickets). You can see the current status at sites like https://ipsw.me and if you're on any iOS 26 supported iDevice currently only 26.3.1 is signed. The last iOS 18 version was 18.6.2 from August of last year. If you go back to the iPhone XS/XR, you'll see they're still updating iOS 18, with 18.7.6 released two weeks ago (March 4), but they've chosen to force anyone who wants security updates to move to iOS 26 instead.

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lynndotpy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No. Apple already released the patch in February, and Apple chose not not patch older releases.

Apple of 2026 is not the same Apple of 2025. The people at Apple have held back iOS 18.7.3, iOS 18.7.4, iOS 18.7.5, or iOS 18.7.6 for most iPhones that support iOS 18.

These are dozens of CVEs patched in these updates, including numerous exploits as bad or worse than the one described in this one. (Article is paywalled so I couldn't read it, so I am getting the details from Google's post https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/threat-intelligence/dar...

- CVE-2025-43541, CVE-2025-43501 WebKit zero day https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/15/apple_follows_google_... (iOS 18.7.3)

- CVE-2025-43529 and CVE-2025-14174, mentioned in the article (iOS 18.7.3)

- The dyld exploit fixed in iOS 18.7.5, and the exploit in this article https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/12/apple_ios_263/ (iOS 18.7.5)

Unfortunately, in iOS 26, there is a new bug where Lockdown Mode breaks call recording, which is something I rely on. Something to weigh for anyone on iOS 18 who is considering installing iOS 26.

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walterbell an hour ago | parent [-]

> Lockdown Mode breaks call recording

Do you mean screen recording? What are the symptoms of the bug?

	▲	lynndotpy 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Nope, call recording. Not sure how universal this is, but phone call recording immediately stops with the "This call is no longer being recorded" effect afterwards.

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pfortuny 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One can hope but I do not trust them.