This one little iOS 26 characteristic makes me jealous as a Pixel person

The Pixel 10 telephones include a slew of good options — all the pieces is AI-driven and feels futuristic, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. In distinction, iOS 26 for iPhones is much less about AI and extra about visible upgrades. I don’t thoughts Liquid Glass, actually — I may play with the refraction all day lengthy, if the heavy animations don’t eat into the battery earlier than that.

However there’s one useful little software in iOS 26, borrowed straight from the Mac, that I’ve change into a stable fan of. If Google ever introduced one thing just like Android and Pixels, I’d personally go to Mountain View to shake Sundar Pichai’s hand.

Preview has lengthy been a Mac staple that’s now ingrained in my workflow. Its greatest feat is that I can press the spacebar to immediately preview any file — PDFs, photographs, movies — with out ready for a separate app to load. It simply sits within the background, prepared everytime you want it.

Notably for PDFs, it’s an absolute gem of a software. You may mark up, fill varieties, add textual content, insert shapes, and extra. What I depend on most is its digital signature software. It’s not some random handwriting font you sometimes discover on PDF editors, however my precise signature that I drew on the trackpad. At this level, I actually can’t reside with out it. It’s indispensable, given what number of paperwork I’ve to e-sign every month.

Apple has now ported the identical Preview app to iPhones, and I had a second of happiness after I first noticed it in motion. On iOS 26, it’s restricted to PDFs alone, however that’s nonetheless an enormous win. It’s layered with the brand new Liquid Glass design, with minimal menus unfold neatly throughout the highest and backside. You get a great deal of useful options, like pressured darkish backgrounds, cropping PDFs, including textual content bins for varieties, and extra.

When you haven’t guessed already, the very first thing I checked was if it had the signature software — and it did. What a second of aid it was! I solely want iOS imported my saved signatures from the Mac (a lot for the bragged ecosystem), however creating a brand new one ought to be simply as straightforward. In any case, a Mac trackpad and a cellphone touchscreen are each simply capacitive glass slabs.

My greatest aid comes from the truth that I can now skim PDFs and signal them on my cellphone with out switching gadgets. Usually, I’d need to seize my Mac, re-download the file from e mail or WhatsApp, and signal it there. None of that’s required anymore.

As a bonus, Preview on iOS additionally has a built-in doc scanner, one thing that beforehand meant leaping to the Notes app. It’s already turning out to be an on a regular basis workhorse for me.

Naturally, the subsequent factor I did was to check this with what my Pixel gives, and let’s simply say I wasn’t practically as happy. On my Pixel 10, opening a PDF with the default viewer will get me a barebones markup software that appears prefer it hasn’t been up to date in a decade.

Certain, you’ll be able to spotlight textual content or scribble one thing in your individual handwriting — and sure, Google deserves credit score for the way nicely it handles pure swipes and curves drawn along with your finger (take a look at the final screenshot above). However do I actually wish to recreate my signature from scratch each time I have to signal a doc? Completely not.

It could be way more sensible if I may simply retailer completely different variations of my signatures as soon as and drop them into paperwork in seconds. If that wasn’t sufficient, Google’s different additionally lacks any type of form-filling choices. Come on, it’s 2025, and Android’s native PDF viewer nonetheless can’t fill varieties with out requiring you to dig by way of the Play Retailer to seek out an app that does? That’s simply embarrassing.

We’ve all a minimum of as soon as reached that time the place Adobe Acrobat Reader’s restrictions bug you adequate to search for stable options. Many individuals accept some random on-line software within the second, however I dug deeper for a extra everlasting repair. And that’s how I found this gem of an app referred to as PDFGear.

It’s surprisingly well-liked, however I hadn’t heard of it till lately, and now I beat myself up for not switching earlier. It’s free, ad-free, and stacked with options. It has signature assist, file conversion to and from PDF, web page modifying, fillable textual content bins, and even the choice to take away passwords from PDFs. Mainly, all the pieces you’d desire a PDF editor to do.

And sure, it’s on Android too. With a bit setup to make it your default PDF app, it’s simply one of the best PDF expertise you’ll get right now on Android, in all probability a lot better than what Preview brings to iOS.

However right here’s why I preserve insisting on a greater native PDF viewer and editor on Android: most individuals don’t fiddle with default apps, not to mention seek out a third-party one until they really know what they’re lacking out on. If Google actually desires to look previous the flashy AI methods on Pixels and polish the necessities, it ought to take a cue from Apple’s Preview on iOS. Higher but, it may one-up Apple by studying a trick or two from PDFGear. What’s stopping it?