If I buy an iPhone 16 today, would it come with iOS 18 installed?

At this point it would probably still have iOS 18, yes.

It's unlikely most iPhone models currently in shops outside of the 17 models would have been updated to iOS 26.

only if it was shipped from their factory, prior to ios26 being released, so if it's been on a shelf with a reseller for some time it would contain whatever was the latest for that model at the time of factory shipment.

if you dislike ios26 then you can inform apple of the fact using their feedback channel

Product Feedback - Apple

MrHoffman wrote:

Probably not, but Apple can update iOS and can charge an iPhone with the iPhone still sealed in its box.

How? Magic?

Probably not, but Apple can update iOS and can charge an iPhone with the iPhone still sealed in its box.

pollyanna97 wrote:

if I buy an iPhone 16 today would it come with iOS 18 installed? As this is what it launched with? I do not want IOS 26 pre installed, hate it.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: iPhone 16

If you buy the phone from Apple, it will likely come with iOS 26. Even if you managed to get one with iOS 18.7.1, at some point you will HAVE to update to iOS 26 if you want security updates in the future. Apple only supports the previous year iOS for only so long. Some time in the near future, Apple will not push security updates to iOS 18, so you may as well get used to iOS 26, which honestly is pretty good, in my opinion.