A security researcher from Vietnam is showing off something unusual: iPadOS running on an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

According to the posts, this isn’t a hidden Apple feature—it’s the result of an exploit that lets you change a system file called MobileGestalt, according to hacker Duy Tran. That file controls how the device identifies itself, and hackers have quietly used this trick for a while for things like iCloud bypasses.

The researcher says the method eventually leaked, someone tipped off Apple, and the company patched the loophole in iOS 26.2 beta 2. A full write-up is expected when the final 26.2 update ships.

Check out the video demo below published on November 15:

They also said they plan to publish their own work soon since “this got leaked till this point lmao.”

To enable iPadOS on an iPhone, you’d reportedly need a tool called SparseBox to generate a modified MobileGestalt file, then apply it manually. Other tools are expected to get updates too, allowing custom tweaks like changing the Dynamic Island and more. Of course, this stuff isn’t for the faint of heart nor is it easy to do for regular folks. But it’s pretty neat to see iPadOS running on an iPhone.