- iOS 26 is changing lighting in airpod boxes
- The new colors are green, yellow and orange
- It is not clear exactly how these new lights will work
We obtained the great revelation of iOS 26 in June, and is currently in public beta tests, but Apple continues to add new features to the software, including support for an expanded lighting system in Airpods load cases.
As seen by minimum nerd (through 9to5google), the fifth beta update of the iOS 26 developer, specifically for application manufacturers, makes a change that “more clearly indicates the load status” in cases of Airpods, according to a graph that appears on the screen.
It seems that there will now be three lights in action: green to load, yellow for being currently charged and orange to show the load of the needs of the case. One of those colors is new, but without any official Apple word, it is not clear exactly which one.
The Apple support document that is currently live in green and amber as the two colors that you will see when you load your Airpods and its case, so it seems that we are going to obtain two different variations in amber in the future.
Lights, load, action
This is new in Beta 5, right? I had never seen it before. pic.twitter.com/gc8bp7ntmpAugust 6, 2025
Taking into account that the Airpods case has such a simple indicator light, interpreting it is actually quite complicated: what it shows varies depending on whether it is connected to energy, if it is open or closed and if the airpods are really in it or not.
During the load and with the closed case, for example, you can touch the case to get a reading: load (amber) or loaded (green). If the case is open, it is not loading and has its airpods in them, Amber means that it has less than a single load in the headphones.
We will have to wait and see exactly how this new triple light approach works in practice: presumably, Apple will provide official documentation if the function remains in the iOS 26 betas and reaches the complete launch (due in September, with the iPhone 17).
Another stranger is whether this will apply to each AirPods model, or only to the most recent. The next pair of apple headphones to see the daylight could be the Airpods Pro 3, which has been referred to in the iOS 26 code.
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