Preview’s Interactive Loupe Finally Arrives on iPhone With iOS 27

Apple is quietly bringing one of iPadOS’s more charming details to iPhone with iOS 27: an interactive loupe inside the Preview app that lets users drag a magnifying glass across the screen, distorting text and content beneath it as if through real glass. It is a small touch, but it connects to something older than most users might expect.

The loupe traces back to Preview’s original Mac icon from 2001, which depicted photos placed under a magnifying glass. Apple changed the icon multiple times over the years, but last year’s redesign kept the loupe as the central visual element, and the new Liquid Glass design language gives it a natural home. The interactive version now arriving on iPhone makes the loupe something you can actually touch, not just look at.

Apple first added this easter egg when Preview came to iPad, but iPhone users were left out at the time. iOS 27 closes that gap, making the behavior consistent across both platforms. Whether the omission was a deliberate rollout strategy or simply a matter of timing is not clear from what Apple has shared.

A Design Detail That Does Real Work

The interaction fits neatly into what Liquid Glass is actually trying to do: create a sense of depth and physical response in the interface. The distortion effect under the loupe is precisely the kind of visual behavior the design system was built to support. It is less an easter egg bolted on and more a feature that the new design language made possible.

Apple is not alone in leaning into this aesthetic direction. WhatsApp has already adopted the Liquid Glass look on iPhone, showing how quickly third-party apps are picking up the visual language Apple introduced. For Preview, the loupe is a reminder that the best interface details tend to have history behind them.