iOS 26 has plenty of new features for the iPhone, but the big showcase is its new look. Liquid Glass, of course, is the most noticeable change, but there’s another visual enhancement that not everyone is seeing. In fact, it’s a subtle addition brought over from iOS 18.
That’s the updated Siri and its rainbow shimmer around the edges of the screen when you activate the virtual assistant. It sounds like a silly thing to prioritize, but Siri’s new look isn’t just a cosmetic makeover. As part of Apple Intelligence features such as notification summaries, Genmoji and the Clean Up tool in Photos, Siri gets new features, too.
But don’t panic if you can’t see the colors and the familiar Siri orb at the bottom of the screen appears instead. You may still need some assistance getting it to trigger. If you recently upgraded to iOS 26 and aren’t sure how to activate Siri’s new glow, here’s what to do.
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Your iPhone might not be able to run Apple Intelligence
It’s possible you may need a new phone to get Apple Intelligence to work properly. More than likely, you’ll just need to do a quick software update.
The latest system update is for everyone with an iPhone 11 or later. Because much of the AI computation is done on the device, only a handful of models can currently run the new technologies:
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 16
- iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16E
- iPhone 16 Pro
- iPhone 16 Pro Max
- iPhone 17
- iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone 17 Pro Max
- iPhone Air
Apple Intelligence will also run on Macs and iPads with M-series processors, as well as the latest iPad Mini (which is powered by the A17 Pro chip).
If you have any of those models, you’ll see the shimmering new look when you invoke Siri. On the Mac, the Siri search field gets the same effect instead of the entire screen edges. If you have a different model, you’ll see the same Siri orb.
You may need to re-enable Apple Intelligence
After the first Apple Intelligence features arrived in iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1 and MacOS Sequoia 15.1, they weren’t automatically turned on. You had to sign up and wait for a few hours or days to get access.
The latest updates (iOS 26.0.1, iPadOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe 26) now automatically enable Apple Intelligence. Even if you just jumped from an earlier iOS to 26, Apple Intelligence should be on, and the new Siri interface should appear.
However, if you had Apple Intelligence on your device at some point but turned it off, the latest updates don’t flip the switch to re-enable it. Go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and make sure the Apple Intelligence toggle is turned on.
Check your Siri language settings
Currently, Apple Intelligence is not available worldwide and uses only English language models. In Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, make sure Language is set to one of the following:
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Spanish
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Japanese
- Korean
Additionally, if you switched the Language setting to something else — talking to Siri in another language can be more fun than Duolingo — selecting one of the languages above might not automatically re-enable the new Siri. But there’s an easy fix: In Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri, turn Apple Intelligence off and back on again. Then restart the iPhone. That re-downloads the necessary language model.
For more on what’s new related to iOS 26, here’s the right way to back up your iPhone before you install iOS 26 and the settings you want to change first in iOS 26. And don’t miss my six favorite Apple Intelligence features.
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