Interestingly enough, my phone (which is currently running iOS 26) doesn't have the new flashlight UI, it's still a regular slider. Very one-finger-slide-uppable. The new "feature" with iOS 18 onwards is only present on iPhone 14 Pro and later (the bubbly black blob that is the dynamic island is necessary)
post
There are so many bad UI decisions in iOS 26.1. Phone dialer and camera are practically unusable. Just gratuitous changes with so many hidden options.
At least, for some of them they let you switch back to 'classic' mode. But it's like they brought back all the bad ideas from the skeumorphic days.
Mine looks like this? iPhone 16 pro with iOS 26.1

I also turned on “Reduce Transparency” in accessibility because fuck this hideous glass gimmick. Tell us you’re out of ideas, Apple, without telling us you’re out of ideas.
Seriously I wish I could revert back to iOS 17 right now. Actually, I’d settle to restore to 18.5.
iOS 26 is on par with an early beta version and should never have been released to the public in this state.
Shame on you, Apple!!! Bad, bad release!!!!!!!
I’ve been using developer betas of iOS for at least the last 5 or 6 years.
The current state of iOS 26 is worse than any of those betas. It’s sluggish, UX has been thrown out the window entirely, it’s hard to read anything. Everything is harder to achieve. Things that used to just be there now take a few taps and going back and forth between possible locations. Really terrible stuff.
Every time I read something like this I’m glad I’ve been ignoring the upgrade popups for the last.. how long has 18 been out..?
I got this pos thinking.. hey if I’m gunna spend a ton I at least want it to get updates for a long time for a change… and then I nearly immediately stopped updating due to the ai nonsense.. I don’t want that shit in my phone so I noped out on the first actual upgrade that came down after I got the thing. What a waste.
If not for the back glass being shattered (despite being in a case since day 1.. I still don’t know how it happened..) I’d just sell it and move to.. idk what since Linux phones aren’t there yet, but something else.
Oooof
Curious! Didja use iOS 18 for the first six months?
Been super thankful: iOS 26 is more stable than about month five of iOS 18. Unreasonably angry about iOS 18 instability. Probably helps my impression of the new iOS when I do notice a bug to remind myself of how bad it was for so damn long on the last version.
Good news though Apple is planning to reopen their signing wind——NOPE trollin’ they’d never help ya out like that (for REASONS)
Edit: okay iOS 17 isn’t getting security updates so I wouldn’t advocate for reopening that signing window but for iOS 18, of course. Someone on MacRumors just bought a replacement iP15 Pro they made sure would have iOS 18 installed.
Re-edit b/c Apple would likely still patch bad exploits in 17
Lol cute. Yes I did use it, and it was more stable than this even with its quirks.
At least I could type a full sentence without any typos because of the damn keyboard shifting unresponsively all the time, or having iMessage lockup or Safari freeze completely or having to reboot my damn iPhone 15 daily, or having the UI flash like an epileptic clanker on schrooms…
Fuck this GlassOnion UI.
Oh, and to answer you, I’ve been using Apple products since System 7. That’s from the late 1900’s for you.
I...had no idea you could even adjust the brightness lol.
I only use an iPhone for work, and Android typically has no brightness adjustment so I made no assumption iOS would support it either. Fun.
:) I even made a shortcut to set flashlight brightness to about 1% which is lower than it’s possible to set it via UI. It’s a little buggy hence employing a very advanced technique of covering the majority of the LED with a finger. Cheers to your next late night bathroom run or whatever.
Android only started with the brightness adjustment from version 13. So any phone with Android 13 and higher should have it.
Has anyone found themselves adjusting beam width from time to time over the past year?
So you’re saying I should get an iPhone 13 mini
Your carpal tunnel is saying that
:(
But security :-/
Aren’t there a (~~~~)hundred million people using out of date iOS and macOS? Are they all part of botnets? Do I have to review every CVE patch since the final version of iOS 17 or any unpatched OS to understand the actual risks of not upgrading Apple hardware the day it goes out of date?
^been meaning to make a thread
13 runs the latest iOS
(Responding for your thread;)
Oh awesome even the iPhone 11 does too.
You have to go back to the iPhone 6 to find a phone that is guaranteed not to be patched against this:
“iOS 15.8.4 and iPadOS 15.8.4
Released March 31, 2025
[…]
WebKit
Impact: Maliciously crafted web content may be able to break out of Web Content sandbox.”
So that’s why people must be generally OK. There can’t be massive numbers of people using the 6 or earlier anymore. Well not super massive. Wonder how often that web content is maliciously crafted to break out on them… I’ll have to make that thread because I’m really curious about this. How many people are vulnerable, how desirable and easy to deploy is the exploit…
all 37 comments