Chinese iPhone users will gain access to Apple Intelligence features including Live Translation, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence when Apple releases iOS 27.3 in December.
The rollout follows a licence granted by Chinese regulators in July for Apple Intelligence services on iPhones. China has specific rules for generative artificial intelligence services, while the Cyberspace Administration of China assesses some data export activities.
Apple and Alibaba said on 31 October that Qwen, Alibaba’s generative AI model, will be integrated into Apple Intelligence in China. Eddie Wu Yongming, Alibaba’s chief executive officer, said: 'We are delighted to cooperate with Apple. Qwen will draw on Alibaba's deep AI technology stack to deeply integrate into the Apple ecosystem, jointly delivering entirely new intelligent experiences for Apple users in China.'
Testing will begin on 4 November through the iOS 27.3 developer beta, Apple said. The public version will arrive in December with the official iOS 27.3 release.
The arrangement gives users an improved Siri experience, including Type to Siri and access to Qwen for certain requests. Siri AI itself will be absent from the initial Chinese release. Apple’s latest Siri AI capabilities and other next-generation AI services, launched in September, are also excluded.
Qwen will also be available through Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. Users will be able to ask questions about photos and documents, including PDFs and presentations, and create original material through Writing Tools. They can sign in to reach Qwen through their own accounts or Sign in with Apple.
The first release includes about 18 features, among them Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone; Genmoji; Clean Up in Photos; natural-language photo searches; priority notifications; notification summaries; and Smart Reply.
Apple Intelligence in China will initially be limited to the iPhone. Support for other platforms will follow only once the required regulatory approvals are in place. Compatible devices are the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 16 and later, iPhone Air, and iPhone Duo. Both Siri and the device language must be set to English or Simplified Chinese.
Apple had trained its own LLM specifically for China by August, Reuters reported. Bloomberg had reported that the company was planning a December iOS 27.3 launch without Siri AI and other newer features. The Paper reported that Tim Cook had confirmed regulatory approval and expected a test version before the end of October.
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