Developers booted iPadOS 26 on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, showing resizable windows, monitor output and desktop multitasking—though the exploit is patched.
© E. Vartanyan
An iPhone 17 Pro Max has been spotted running iPadOS 26, an outcome few would have predicted. A developer managed to boot the tablet operating system on a smartphone, effectively bringing Apple’s signature multitasking to a phone-sized device.
The first proof surfaced from a Reddit user going by TechExpert2910, who posted photos showing iPadOS 26’s new floating windows on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apps open in genuine resizable windows, and a macOS-like menu appears at the top. On X, user Duy Tran shared a video of the system in action, and the interface looks far smoother than a phone would normally suggest.
While the iPhone’s tall display is hardly an ideal canvas for iPadOS, the handset connects to an external monitor without fuss, turning into a desktop-style setup without the need for a Mac or PC. That’s the core aim of the modification: to unlock a full desktop workflow on a phone.
Reproducing the feat, however, is virtually out of reach. The author says the install relied on a vulnerability that Apple has already patched in iOS/iPadOS 26.2. In practice, most users won’t be able to try it.
Even so, the demonstration makes a clear point: iPadOS multitasking runs comfortably on a modern iPhone in its current form. It naturally prompts the question of whether Apple might one day enable similar capabilities on standard iPhones, not just on future foldables. For now, this looks like the best unofficial glimpse of how Apple could narrow the gap between iOS and iPadOS—along with how a long-anticipated foldable iPhone might behave when it finally arrives.