Interesting, I had no issue pairing despite not being on iOS 26. The only things I noticed was that they didn't show up in the Find My app (which is pretty bad) and that I didn't get the shortcut to the airpods settings on the main setting page and had to go through the bluetooth menu instead, otherwise I could pair and do everything I normally did. Tbh, I didn't even notice an issue until I read online about the two things I mentioned...