Apple’s latest iPadOS 26 beta 3 just dropped, bringing a neat little feature from the Mac over to the iPad. Now, you can quickly find your cursor by giving it a quick shake, perfect for those times it gets lost on your screen. This beloved “shake to find” trick is a simple but effective usability win for iPad users.
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Find Your Cursor Fast with “Shake to Find”
If you’ve ever used a Mac, you might know this handy trick: wiggle the cursor back and forth quickly, and it suddenly grows much larger on your screen. This makes it super easy to spot, especially if you’re working on a large display or have a busy background.
This “shake to find” feature first appeared in macOS El Capitan about a decade ago and has been a quiet favorite among Mac users ever since. Now, Apple is bringing that same bit of convenience to the iPad in iPadOS 26.
Enlarged cursor pointer highlighted on an iPad screen running the iPadOS 26 beta, showing the 'shake to find' accessibility feature.
The implementation works just like on the Mac: simply move your external mouse or trackpad rapidly from side to side, and the on-screen pointer will briefly enlarge before snapping back to its normal size when you stop.
Why Now? The New iPadOS Cursor
This timing for “shake to find” is actually quite clever. In iPadOS 26, Apple is already making big changes to the iPad’s pointer. Instead of the adaptive circle cursor introduced in earlier versions of iPadOS, the new cursor is a more traditional arrow pointer, much like you see on a Mac.
While this new pointer design is more precise and Mac-like, a smaller, fixed-size arrow can sometimes be easier to lose track of on the screen compared to the larger, more visually distinct adaptive circle. Bringing the “shake to find” feature to the iPad helps counter this, ensuring users can quickly reorient themselves no matter the cursor design.
iPad screen showing the redesigned home screen interface in iPadOS 26 with the updated dock at the bottom.
More Than Just a Cursor Trick
While “shake to find” is a welcome little addition, iPadOS 26 is shaping up to be a significant update for iPad users. Alongside this handy cursor trick, iPadOS 26 is packed with other big changes focused on productivity and multitasking.
Key enhancements include a revamped app windowing system that allows for more flexible window arrangements, a more powerful and capable Files app, the addition of a macOS-style menu bar for apps, and an upgraded dock for easier access to your apps and recent documents. These changes collectively aim to make the iPad a more capable machine for complex workflows.
When Can You Try iPadOS 26?
Currently, iPadOS 26 is only available to registered Apple developers through the beta program. This latest update, beta 3, includes the “shake to find” feature.
If you’re not a developer, you can expect a public beta sometime in July, allowing more adventurous users to test out the new features before the final release. The official release for everyone is typically around September, following Apple’s usual software release schedule alongside the new iPhones.
Bringing the “shake to find” cursor feature to iPadOS 26 is a great example of Apple borrowing a successful usability feature from one platform and bringing it to another. It’s a small detail, but one that can make a real difference in daily use, especially as the iPad’s pointer becomes more traditional. We look forward to testing out this and all the other new productivity features in iPadOS 26.
