iPadOS 12 End of Life Date
iPadOS 12 end-of-life date, support status, and CVE risk. Data from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation.
iPadOS 12 was released on September 17, 2018 and support ended on September 24, 2019 — a supported lifespan of 1 year, in line with the 1 year median for iPadOS releases. The last patch it will ever receive is 12.5.8, published January 26, 2026 — 6 years and 4 months after the published end-of-life date. It has been without security patches for 6 years and 11 months. 6 newer iPadOS releases have shipped since.
What does iPadOS 12 end of life mean?
When iPadOS 12 reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches for this version. CVEs discovered after the EOL date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database with no patch available. Exploit code frequently appears on GitHub within days of disclosure.
The CVE blind spot: Most vulnerability scanners check for known CVEs but do not flag the ongoing accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software versions. Running iPadOS 12 past its EOL date creates a permanently growing attack surface that standard security tooling will not surface.
Migrate to iPadOS 26 or implement compensating controls — network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, restricted access — while migration is underway.