Videos showing iPhone 17 Pro Max units running iPadOS 26 have gone viral on X in the past few days. 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. First look of iPadOS on iPhone 17 Pro Max pic.twitter.com/PMynlGLVFw — Duy Tran (@khanhduytran0) November 15, 2025Duy Tran explained in a different post that running iPadOS 26 on the iPhone 17 Pro Max is essentially a bug. 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.