I've locked mine at the last available version (18.7.1 I think). It's still perfectly usable (for now) and I don't think it's shameful not to want a degraded experience. I've been shown several instances of it by friends who are annoyed by things like the now-floating top bar for imessage or the formatting breakage caused by the new switches. Most apps still look like they're made for 18 at the moment, and it looks even better with "reduce transparency" and "increase contrast".

I didn't like it at all, at first. Since the last public beta, I've grown to mostly like, and even prefer, iOS 26 after spending a while with it.

It certainly has room for improvement, but I enjoy the trend of the search bar being on the bottom, the OS is mostly really nice to look at, and I like the new gestures to get to buried menu items.

26.1 has more tweaks in the direction I want to see. I'm hopeful.

My pet peeves are a bit milder. I've found the new contacts that tries to search both call logs and the actual contact list a bit confusing. Besides these "pet peeves", I just saw the old one again and loved it. I guess you won't know what you're missing until you move on and come back?

Does anyone like the simplicity of their old fridge compared with the 14 by 8 flat screen with ads for sale items and streaming recipe suggestions from food, condiment and cookware vendors and AI-recreated chefs from Epictetus to James Beard and Paul Prudhomme?

Tim Cook and the ultra-wealthy inside Apple live in a glass-walled bubble, convinced the rest of us need to feel their vision somehow. Apple isn’t Apple anymore — it’s become something colder, more corporate. The sad part is, things will only get worse. And there’s no new “Apple” waiting for us to switch to.