iOS 26 Preview App

iOS 26's Preview App Makes Me Jealous as a Pixel User

Mobile

I've been playing around with the new Pixel 10, and while I'm impressed with all the AI-driven features, I can't help but feel a twinge of envy towards iPhone users with iOS 26. It's not about the flashy "Liquid Glass" visual upgrades, although those are kinda neat. It's about one simple, incredibly useful tool that Apple has borrowed from macOS: Preview.

Preview has been a Mac staple forever, and it's completely changed how I work. The best thing? I can tap the spacebar and instantly see any file, whether it's a PDF, image, or video. I don't need to wait for a separate app to load. It's always ready in the background. For PDFs, it's a lifesaver. I can mark them up, fill out forms, add text, and even insert shapes. But my favorite feature is the digital signature tool. I can use my actual signature that I drew on the trackpad, not some generic handwriting font. I literally can’t live without it. It’s really important for me, since I have to e-sign a lot of documents every month.

Apple brought the same Preview app to iPhones, and I was thrilled when I first saw it. In iOS 26, it only works for PDFs, but it's still a big improvement. It has the cool Liquid Glass look, with simple menus at the top and bottom. You get lots of useful features, like forced dark backgrounds and adding text boxes for forms.

The first thing I checked was whether it had the signature tool. Luckily, it did! I was relieved. It would have been nice if iOS had imported my saved signatures from the Mac, but making a new one is easy enough. After all, a Mac trackpad and a phone touchscreen are similar.

For me, the best part is that I can now quickly look through PDFs and sign them on my phone without needing to switch to my Mac. Before, I had to get my Mac, re-download the file from email or WhatsApp, and sign it there. Now, I don't have to do any of that.

Also, Preview on iOS has a built-in document scanner, so I don't have to switch to the Notes app anymore. It's quickly becoming something I use every day.

Of course, I had to see how it compared to what my Pixel offers. I wasn't very happy. On my Pixel 10, the default PDF viewer has very basic tools that seem outdated. You can highlight text or scribble, and Google does a good job with finger swipes. However, I don't want to recreate my signature every time I need to sign a document.

I wish I could save different versions of my signatures and easily add them to documents. Also, Google's viewer can't fill out forms. It's 2025, and Android's PDF viewer still can't fill forms without needing a separate app from the Play Store? That's pretty bad.

We've all been annoyed by Adobe Acrobat Reader's limitations and looked for better options. I found a great app called PDFGear. I hadn't heard of it until recently, and now I wish I had switched sooner. It's free, has no ads, and is packed with features. It can do signatures, convert files to and from PDF, edit pages, add text boxes, and even remove passwords from PDFs. Basically, it does everything you'd want a PDF editor to do.

And yes, it's available on Android. If you set it as your default PDF app, it's the best PDF experience you can get on Android today, even better than what Preview offers on iOS.

But I still think Android needs a better built-in PDF viewer and editor. Most people don't change their default apps or look for third-party apps unless they know what they're missing. If Google wants to improve Pixels beyond the fancy AI features, it should copy Apple's Preview on iOS. Or even better, it could learn some tricks from PDFGear. What's stopping them?

Google already copied Apple's Journal app for the Pixel 10, so why not do the same here? I'd like to see Google create its own Preview alternative for Android that isn't just for Pixels.

Source: AndroidAuthority