The iPhone Desktop Mode That Never Was, Thankfully

Saw this Reddit post today about people getting iPhone desktop mode working in iOS 26.1 through an exploit. Reminded me of all the hype before iOS 26 launched.

Everyone was convinced it was coming. Leakers had code snippets. Tech sites were practically drooling over the idea - plug your USB-C iPhone into a monitor and boom, Samsung DeX competitor. The raw power of the A19 Pro chip (and the A17/A18 before it) rivals desktop silicon, so why waste it on a 6-inch screen?

This didn’t happen, however all the code is still in there. People have been exploiting it in 26.1 to get a "Stage Manager-like" interface when plugging into displays. The exploit doesn't work in 26.2 beta 2 though. Maybe Apple's actively killing it, maybe they're still working on it and it'll ship eventually.

I wanted this feature. I write most of my blog posts on my iPhone, so plugging it into a monitor to actually work sounded perfect. However seeing people test the exploit, and reading about the iPad's external display mess, convinced me we dodged a bullet.

The iPad External Display Disaster

Matt Birchler just wrote about the M5 iPad Pro's external display mode and it's seems a nightmare. Apps don't work properly. Mouse acceleration feels weird. Control Center opens on the external display but appears on the iPad screen instead. When Matt would rather work on his 11-inch iPad screen than use his 32-inch monitor, you know there are issues.

I no longer use an iPad other than my trust Mini, despite years of it being my only computer, simply because the OS fights you constantly. After years of trying iPad OS is a mess and Apple doesn’t really know what it wants it to be. Stuck between stupid bets it made to not cannibalise the Mac, and what its users actually want. If they brought this experience to iPhone, it would be unusable.

Better Buried Than Broken

Samsung DeX works. Taskbar, start menu, windows that actually move where you put them. Nothing innovative, just a desktop that functions like a desktop.

Apple won't do this. They're married to touch-first design even when you're holding a mouse. This philosophical stubbornness means the feature potentially can never work properly. They keep making significant mid-cycle changes to windowing on iPad, which tells you they know they haven't figured it out yet.

Apple knows this - that's probably why the feature didn't ship with iOS 26. Until they're willing to compromise on their design religion and give us actual desktop elements instead of touch-optimised garbage, they're right to keep it hidden. Sometimes not shipping something is better than shipping it badly.