>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.

▲

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 20 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.