Apple Sets Nov. 4 Start for Apple Intelligence Tests in China

Apple has confirmed that testing of Apple Intelligence in China will start on November 4 in the next iOS developer beta, with a public rollout planned for December alongside iOS 27.3. The date appeared in a press release on the company's Chinese newsroom.

The date marks the start of platform testing, not necessarily the release of the first iOS 27.3 beta itself. That beta had not yet appeared, even though Apple usually ships the first beta of its next update soon after the previous release.

Qwen model powers Chinese features

Users in China will get an improved Siri experience, including Type to Siri, and access to Alibaba's Qwen AI model for some requests. Qwen will also be built into Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, letting people ask questions about images and documents, including PDFs and presentations, and create original text from scratch. Access requires signing in to a personal account or using Sign in with Apple.

The initial rollout will also include Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and Phone, Genmoji, Clean Up, natural-language photo search, Priority Notifications, Notification Summaries and Smart Reply. The Siri AI features themselves will not be available in China for now.

Supported devices and requirements

The features will launch on iPhone only, with support for other platforms to follow once regulatory approvals are secured. Supported models are the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 and later, the iPhone Air and the iPhone Duo. Both Siri and the device language must be set to English or Simplified Chinese.

Long regulatory road

The announcement follows long talks with Chinese regulators and several delays. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple planned a December launch in China within iOS 27.3, without Siri AI. A state-backed Chinese outlet later said Tim Cook had confirmed the necessary approvals.

Last week Apple released iOS 27.2, which extends Siri's AI features to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. The company said four more languages, including Traditional Chinese, will arrive before the end of the year.