Google Magnifier's new icon comes with an annoying little bug

Google has been steadily refreshing the icons of its first-party apps, and Magnifier is the latest Pixel app to get the treatment. A new update gives Google Magnifier a more colorful gradient icon, although it also appears to have broken the app’s themed icon in the process.

Version 2.0.0.965719431 of Magnifier is now rolling out with the redesigned icon. The old predominantly blue design has been replaced by a lighter background, while the magnifying glass is thicker and uses a blue-to-purple gradient. The square behind it is now filled in as well. You can see the difference between the old icon on the left and the new one on the right, below.

Magnifier is Google’s accessibility app for Pixel 5 and newer phones, using the camera to help you zoom in on small text and other details. It also offers tools such as brightness and contrast controls, as well as live text search through the camera viewfinder. There don’t appear to be any changes inside the app itself.

There’s one less polished part of the update. With themed icons enabled, the previous version of Magnifier displayed a monochrome version of the app’s magnifying-glass logo that matched the phone’s Material You colors. On the latest version, we’re instead just seeing a blank colored circle.

That certainly looks like a bug rather than a deliberate redesign, especially since the regular icon is displaying as intended. We’d be surprised if Google didn’t move to rectify this fairly sharpish, so don’t expect Magnifier to be AWOL on Pixel home screens for long.