Hereā€™s the catch, as noted by Michael Tsai:

After a brief reprieve, Apple seems to have gone back to the policy of iOS 18.7.3, where you can only get iOS 18.7.9 if your phone is not capable of running iOS 26.

In other words, Appleā€™s security updates on iOS are passive-aggressive, forcing you to update from iOS 18 to iOS 26 on pain of affliction with 0-day vulnerabilities. Cynically, we might wonder whether Apple is withholding Safari 26.5 on macOS for the same reason, to ā€œencourageā€ those of us who hate Liquid Glass to install macOS Tahoe anyway. Weā€™ve already seen how Apple tricks users into installing Tahoe.

Source: Apple 0-dayed Safari on macOS Sequoia and Sonoma

Having worked at large companies, I want to say that the answer is rarely strategic, but far more tactical. They likely discovered a late breaking bug that would cause Safari on Mac OS to get delayed. And rather than delay the entire series of operating systems as a result, they decided to release everything else.

The conversation would have gone something like:

  • Safari TL: discovered a late breaking issue that will delay Safari 26.5
  • Release manager: Letā€™s call a meeting with the approvers and come to a decision
  • ā€¦
  • Approval meeting: Release manager - we need to come to a decision on whether we should delay 26.5 releases as a result of mac os safari bug
    • Mac OS: i want to hear what others have to think
    • iOS: šŸ‘Ž - doesnā€™t affect iOS and far more iOS users compared to Mac OS
    • Mac OS: youā€™re right. but it leaves non 26 mac os users vulnerable to attacks.
    • Release manager: how many non Tahoe mac os users are there? How long before we can update and fix?
    • Mac OS: single to double digit % but significantly less than even 20%. Takes about a week - of course no guarantees.
    • Release manager: whatā€™s the severity of the issue?
    • Mac OS: Itā€™s a complex attack. Details
    • Release manager: proposeal - how about we release everything and do everything necessary to not delay for more than a week given the exposure time and the surface area seems limited.
    • Everyone: Okay

Note that there was no malice. Itā€™s more to do with the good of the many. I also donā€™t mean to downplay these are not serious discussions and decisions. However, I am also putting it in perspective that it doesnā€™t have to be a cynical - We shall destroy the Tahoe community decision.

Update: 2026-05-14: Safari 26.5 now released