Well, the new software update shows a third color, yellow, which indicates the case is currently charging. This means that, for the first time, your AirPods charging case light will be able to distinguish between “charging” and “needs to be charged.”
Like I said, it’s a small new feature — and, admittedly, it could be difficult to differentiate the orange/amber and yellow in certain lighting — but it’s neat and kind of useful.
When’s it coming?
Of course, just because it appears in the developer beta doesn’t mean it’ll come to the public beta — which is out now, but continues to be updated — or the official release of iOS 26. But we’re optimisic.
If the new yellow charging light indicator is a new feature of iOS 26, it’ll definitely come to the AirPods 2 and AirPods 4 models. As for older models (or even the USB-C AirPods Max), that’s not yet exactly clear.
