Until Wednesday, iPhone users who had intentionally avoided updating to iOS 26 in spite of their hardware being compatible with the latest software fell into a worrisome security donut hole. Now Apple has started plugging the hole, according to Wired—no update to the dreaded Liquid Glass aesthetic needed.
This all concerns DarkSword, a deeply scary exploit that sounds like it can really ruin your week. If you’re an iPhone user with an unpatched older version of iOS, just browsing an infected site can install spyware on your device that can access your personal data and potentially steal your money and crypto.
“If you have kept your iPhone software up to date, then you are already protected,” says an update from Apple about the exploit. “If your iPhone has an older version of iOS, update to protect your data,” it continues.
But some people hate the latest iOS and its headache-inducing glass-like bubbles. My colleague James Pero liked the aesthetic overall, but wrote that at times it produced a “blurry, visual disaster.”
Older versions of iOS have already been updated to secure iPhones from the DarkSword exploit, but the remedy for anyone who could update from iOS 18 to iOS 26 but hadn’t was… the admonition to update to iOS 26, and that was it.
But Wired reportedly got word on Tuesday from an anonymous Apple spokesperson that a rare type of update called “backporting” would come Wednesday for Liquid Glass haters, along with anyone else who just happened to choose not to update from iOS 18 to iOS 26.
So if you’re dead set against Liquid Glass, chalk this up as a win, if a somewhat scary one.
Read the full article here
