Apple has confirmed on its Chinese newsroom site that Apple Intelligence testing in China begins on 4 November, in the next iOS developer beta. MacRumors says that is the first iOS 27.3 beta, due next week, while 9to5Mac points out that the 4 November date marks the start of testing rather than necessarily beta 1 itself. A public release follows in December with iOS 27.3.
Chinese users get an improved Siri with Type to Siri and access to Alibaba's Qwen for some requests, but not Siri AI. Qwen also reaches Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, covering questions about photos, PDFs and presentations and text written from scratch. Other launch features include Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, Genmoji, Clean Up in Photos, natural-language photo search, priority notifications, notification summaries and Smart Reply. Image Playground and Siri AI are left out.
Illustration for Apple Intelligence arriving in China
Image: MacRumors
The rollout starts on iPhone only: the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo, with Siri and the device set to English or Simplified Chinese. iPad, Mac and other devices wait for further regulatory approval. Separately, iOS 27.2 shipped the Monday before with Siri AI in five more languages, and four more are due by year end.
About Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence is Apple's collection of AI features, mixing on-device and server processing, built into iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Apple announced it at WWDC on 10 June 2024 alongside iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia. It reached developers and testers on 29 July 2024 in US English through the iOS 18.1 betas and launched fully on 28 October 2024.
The China version has a longer history. Reports in early 2025 said Apple had partnered with Alibaba to bring Qwen models to the feature in mainland China, and the rollout then faced review by the Cyberspace Administration of China and delays. In July 2026 Reuters reported that the regulator had approved Apple's AI services, on a deal to integrate Qwen.
Oct 2024
Released
The date follows months of reporting. Reuters said in mid-July that Apple Intelligence had cleared a major regulatory hurdle in China after lengthy back-and-forth and delays, and Bloomberg had earlier pointed to a December launch through iOS 27.3 without Siri AI. The next day, the state-backed The Paper said Tim Cook had confirmed approval and a test version before the end of October.
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