Apple has set a date for bringing Apple Intelligence to mainland China. In a press release on its China Newsroom, dated October 31 local time, the company said a first set of features will open for testing on November 4 through the latest iOS developer beta, with a public launch planned for December alongside iOS 27.3. MacRumors spotted the release on October 30, and The Verge and 9to5Mac followed. The features have been unavailable in China since they first shipped with iOS 18.1.
The package is the earlier generation of Apple Intelligence rather than its newest tools. Apple lists Live Translation in Messages, FaceTime and the Phone app, plus face-to-face translation through supported AirPods. Writing Tools can rewrite, proofread and summarize text. Visual Intelligence identifies objects and places through the camera, Clean Up erases distractions from photos, and Genmoji creates custom emoji from a typed description. Photos also gains natural-language search and Memory movies built from a prompt, while Mail adds priority messages, summaries and Smart Reply.
System-level additions round out the list: notification summaries on the Lock Screen, Priority Notifications, the Reduce Interruptions focus, audio transcription summaries in Notes and summaries of call transcripts. Siri gets Type to Siri, better handling of requests when a user stumbles over words, and the ability to keep context across follow-up questions. Apple says these experiences run on generative models it built itself.
Alibaba fills the role that ChatGPT plays elsewhere. Apple said it worked with Alibaba to support Qwen in Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence, covering text and image understanding. Siri can hand certain requests to Qwen, users can ask about photos and documents such as PDFs and slide decks, and a compose option in Writing Tools lets Qwen draft new content from scratch. Access requires a Qwen account or Sign in with Apple. The Verge noted the setup resembles the ChatGPT integration Apple introduced in 2024.
The limits are significant. Apple says the update does not include Siri AI or the other next-generation Apple Intelligence features it announced at WWDC 2026, and MacRumors reports that Image Playground will not be offered either. Only iPhone is covered at first: the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 lineup and later models, iPhone Air and iPhone Duo, with device and Siri language set to English or Simplified Chinese. Apple says Mac, iPad and other platforms will follow only after it receives the necessary approvals.
The announcement ends a long regulatory wait. Chinese rules restrict foreign AI services, which pushed Apple toward local partners. The Verge recalled that Chinese regulators cleared Apple Intelligence back in July, and MacRumors summarized October reports from Bloomberg on the iOS 27.3 timing and from the South China Morning Post on network access permits for Alibaba's Qwen and Tongyi Wanxiang models on recent iPhones. Under the same arrangement, according to MacRumors, Apple must let Chinese authorities approve ongoing updates to the models.
Some details remain unsettled. 9to5Mac pointed out that the November 4 date marks when Chinese testing of the features begins, which may not coincide with the first iOS 27.3 beta build, and MacRumors expects the date to fall on November 3 in the United States because of time zones. Apple has not given a day for the December release, and it has said nothing about when Siri AI might reach Chinese users or how Qwen requests are handled on the privacy side.