iPhone 17 Pro Max Can Run iPadOS 26, But Don't Get Too Excited

By Chris Smith
The iPhone 17 Pro models on display. Annice Lyn/Getty Images

Videos showing iPhone 17 Pro Max units running iPadOS 26 have gone viral on X in the past few days. The clip below, posted by Duy Tran, was seen more than 3.2 million times at the time of writing. The one that follows after that, from Huy Nguyen, got over 1.7 million hits. There's clear interest in running the richer iPadOS 26 operating system on a device that comes with iOS 26 out of the box. However, before you get too excited about the prospect of switching to the iPad operating system on your smartphone, you should know that Apple won't offer this functionality.

Duy Tran explained in a different post that running iPadOS 26 on the iPhone 17 Pro Max is essentially a bug. Someone took advantage of an exploit that allows such functionality via a jailbreak. However, it appears that Apple is aware of the issue and the bug has been fixed in iOS 26.2 beta 2, which means the only way to "upgrade" to iPadOS 26 is to avoid the official iOS 26.2 release for as long as possible.

While iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 look identical, down to the Liquid Glass design and app functionality, the iPad operating system has exclusive features that let users take advantage of the bigger screen. Many apps have been customized to take advantage of the larger display. The dock is bigger, and you can run apps side by side. The iPadOS 26 update actually makes the iPad behave more like a MacBook, thanks to the new multitasking system and introduction of a top menu.

A preview of the foldable iPhone?

An iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil. Runrun2/Shutterstock

The iPhone 17 Pro Max has a larger display, which could be used to run a larger dock. Floating app windows and iPad-style multitasking might also come in handy. However, the only iPhone model where running iPadOS would make sense doesn't exist at the time of this writing. That's the foldable iPhone, expected to launch next September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Folded, that device would probably offer an iOS experience similar to traditional iPhones. Unfolded, the iPhone Fold becomes a tablet, and Apple would surely want to offer power users an experience similar to the iPad. It wouldn't be surprising to see Apple adapt some of the current iPadOS 26 features for the iOS 27 version that will power the foldable iPhone. That way, users could transition between iOS and iPadOS depending on whether they open or close the handset.

While that's speculation, let's remember that one of the appeals of iPadOS is Apple's ability to customize app experiences for the larger display, something it encouraged developers to do. Some took longer to launch iPad-specific apps, as Meta did with Instagram, while others adapted their apps much quicker. Compared to Apple, Google has struggled to deliver similar experiences for Android tablets, though Google has tweaked Android in recent years to support app experiences created for large-screen devices, including foldable phones.

With that in mind, seeing the iPhone 17 Pro Max run iPadOS 26 seems to be a preview of what the foldable iPhone will have to offer in terms of software next year.

Recommended