iPadOS 26 brings a new time-waster: You can pick up the 3D magnifying loupe in Preview and drag it around and play with it like a digital fidget spinner.
Yup, the 3D magnifying loupe in the logo for the Preview app on iPadOS 26 is finally yours to play with like a pocket-sized toy. This Easter egg was added in the sixth beta of iPadOS 26 that Apple released yesterday for testing, and it’s just a fun little feature to play with.
The interactive loupe doesn’t work in iOS 26 due to the limited screen space on the iPhone. To try this Easter egg, open Preview on your iPad and simply drag the loupe and drag it around. The 3D object responds to the content beneath, with Liquid Glass effects magnifying and distorting whatever is underneath like a real desktop magnifying glass.
iPadOS 26: Preview lets you drag the loupe around
Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac shared a video of this fun feature in action, seen below. While this feature doesn’t serve any practical purposes other than to surprise and delight, it’s already my favorite time-waster.
You can pick up the loupe in Preview and drag it around, for no reason at all other than it's a fun easter egg. pic.twitter.com/DQeyN52ro4
— Benjamin Mayo (@bzamayo) August 12, 2025
The loupe has been an integral part of the Preview icon on macOS for many years. With iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, Preview has leaped onto the iPhone and iPad, and the app icon is based on a loupe.
The Preview app comes to the iPhone and iPad
In iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, the Preview app looks pretty basic as it opens to a Files picker, which can be confusing to some people. After selecting an image or a PDF document to load, the Preview interface adds a toolbar with options and annotation tools.
The iPhone and iPad versions of Preview don’t have all the features found in the Mac version. You can view bitmap images and PDF documents, perform basic edits and create annotations. Apple wants to position Preview in iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 as an in-house solution to PDF management, annotation and editing on the iPhone and iPad.
That entails making opening images and PDF documents you tap in the built-in Files app automatically open in Preview, which can be quite annoying. However, you can stop this from happening by following the steps in our tutorial.
Basically, you’ll need to use QuickLook in the Files app, which isn’t ideal due to the extra steps required to open images and PDFs. Or, you can delete the Preview app from your iPhone or iPad so that photos and PDFs open in the built-in Files viewer, like before.