Liquid Glass, at last

Adam Engst’s immensely helpful Apple-centric newsletter TidBITS recently reported on a dangerous exploit aimed at iPhones running iOS 18, DarkSword. Visiting a website that’s been hacked with DarkSword leaves an iPhone user vulnerable to all sorts of mayhem, with passwords and other personal data stolen from the phone:

No additional clicks, downloads, or interaction beyond visiting the page are required. The attack works against iOS versions 18.4 through 18.6.2, with some variants also targeting iOS 18.7.

And: “If you’re running iOS 18.7.3 or later, you’re fine.”

The catch: if you have an iPhone that can update to iOS 26 Tahoe (Liquid Glass), there’s no option to update to a more recent version of 18.7. I had 18.7.2, so I updated to iOS 26.4 tonight, reduced transparency and motion, reduced brightness effects, and dimmed flashing lights (all options in the Accessibility settings). And it’s not that bad to look at. On a Mac, with multiple windows open and elements overlapping on screen, things would be much worse. No Tahoe for me there, at least not yet.