It’s honestly had me questioning whether I want to stick to the Apple ecosystem.

I’ve been avoiding iOS 26, mostly because I don’t have the time to deal with a major OS update during the holidays. Apple has decided I should be vulnerable to critical security bugs instead of letting me upgrade on my own time.

or switch to iOS 18 public beta and go to 18.7.3

This is no longer an option, Apple has removed it from the beta program.