Apple's Preview app rumored to be coming to iOS 26, iPadOS 26

AppleInsider

At WWDC, Apple is rumored to bring a long-time Mac app to the iPhone and iPad -- Preview.

Preview app icon on macOS

Apple's Preview app started in NeXTSTEP in the very late eighties. It had its origins in Quartz in Mac OS X in the very early days of macOS, but I'm afraid that my recollections of which Mac OS version made it fully available is lost in the depths of my mind.

And now, Apple is said to be bringing it to iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. According to a report on Friday by Bloomberg, it will be preinstalled and part of the operating system as a whole.

The report calls it an "in-house solution" to PDF management, annotation, and editing. While the latter two terms are true, the iPhone and iPad already have an effective PDF reader in iOS and iPadOS in Safari and Books.

There's not much to the report about it, other that it will be coming in the fall to all users, preinstalled. What's also not clear is if it is a "can opener" style app in iOS and iPadOS.

On macOS, it can be used to open BMP, GIF, JPEGs, PDFs obviously, PowerPoint, PhotoShop, and so many more file formats. This functionality is less-needed on iOS, but arguably would be welcome on iPadOS. How exporting functionality will work, if it does at all, isn't clear yet either.

Also not clear is the extent that the app can be used for editing PDFs. There are some basic image correction tools in macOS, so we'll see how that goes with time.

The addition of Preview is obvious, and welcome. While the PDF engine on Preview on macOS isn't perfect, we'd still like it on Apple's mobile platforms to be fully-featured, like it is on macOS.

Rumor Score: Likely

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brianus

Sounds like it's in keeping with the idea that the "26" OS upgrades are supposed fo make the experience on all Apple devices more seamless and uniform. If an app - especially a built in app with iCloud sync - exists in one OS, then it should exist in all of them, at least all of the ones where it makes sense (in the case of Preview, iOS, iPadOS and visionOS at a minimum should get it. Maybe not watchOS, tvOS, homeOS or CarPlay...).

There are several apps Apple still leaves "stranded" on their platforms, which I hope they'll also take this opportunity to address:

• TextEdit, stranded on macOS 
• Health, exists on iPadOS and iOS but not macOS 
• Fitness, needs a macOS app and the iPadOS version needs all the features of the iOS one (ie, seeing your rings, awards and historical data)
• Journal, stranded on iOS 
• Playgrounds, no iOS version
• QuickTime, stranded on macOS 
• Time Machine - not needed outside of macOS so much as they need to introduce a version of iCloud backup for Macs. TM is practically abandonware at this point 
• DiskUtility - could be useful on USB-C iPads and iPhones 
• FontBook - stranded on macOS and PLEASE GOD bring it to iPadOS already, and iOS while you're at it
• Digital Color Meter - a builtin macOS utility that could really come in handy on iPadOS 
• Xcode - obviously whatever they'd bring to iPadOS would be seriously hobbled but it's better than being stuck with Playgrounds 

Also, needless to say visionOS should get all of the above in full native form, not tossed off iPad apps. Plus all the other ones they haven't ported yet, like Calendar (⁈?) 

netrox

"Time Machine - not needed outside of macOS so much as they need to introduce a version of iCloud backup for Macs. TM is practically abandonware at this point"

That is absolutely not true. I use TM - most of my user data is not stored in iCloud, only important docs and photos. If I install an update or an app that lead to data corruption, TM will revert back to older state much faster than iCloud can. iCloud does not provide true backup - you still have to install apps and register and so on.  With TM, that is not necessary.  

rsync is another command that lets you back up but it cannot be used if the OS is corrupted. You would need to install OS again. rsync is ideal for backing up user data across many platforms over many types of protocols. 

pianoman1962

netrox said:

"Time Machine - not needed outside of macOS so much as they need to introduce a version of iCloud backup for Macs. TM is practically abandonware at this point"

That is absolutely not true. I use TM - most of my user data is not stored in iCloud, only important docs and photos. If I install an update or an app that lead to data corruption, TM will revert back to older state much faster than iCloud can. iCloud does not provide true backup - you still have to install apps and register and so on.  With TM, that is not necessary.  

rsync is another command that lets you back up but it cannot be used if the OS is corrupted. You would need to install OS again. rsync is ideal for backing up user data across many platforms over many types of protocols. 

I too would like to see TM for iPhone. I like the idea of being able to go back to a previous OS if I don't like an update. I also hate the fact that one can't just re-install iOS on top of (and therefore replacing) the existing installation like one can with MacOS. Doing that often solves a problem without the need of a full erase and re-install. When I do that, I get thousands of historical emails flooding back into the Mail app, some which I want to keep, so they need recording and sorting through. Major PITA.