Apple Intelligence to Launch in China in December Without Siri AI, Bloomberg Reports
Apple plans to launch Apple Intelligence in China in December via iOS 27.3, excluding Siri AI and some features, Bloomberg reports.
The report follows an earlier report from the South China Morning Post that Chinese regulators had approved the use of Alibaba's AI models to power Apple Intelligence, after preliminary approval for the platform's rollout in July. The timing of the approval was particularly relevant, the report noted, because the iPhone Duo is scheduled to launch in China next week.
Bloomberg reported that Apple had to make concessions to secure approval. Unlike in other countries, the platform has guardrails developed with China's Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., including a filter that allows the government to approve ongoing updates to the AI models, according to the report. Apple is also working with Baidu Inc. on features related to search and Siri.
On Sept. 29, Apple received Chinese permits allowing recent iPhones to support the use of Apple Intelligence and Alibaba AI models, including Tongyi Wanxiang and Qwen, according to the report.
The China launch will not include Apple's in-house image-generation tools, and certain features for generating text will also be limited in some applications, Bloomberg reported. The initial rollout will include Genmoji for creating custom emoji, Apple's AI-powered notification summaries, writing tools, and the Clean Up feature in Photos, which lets users remove unwanted objects from images.
It is unclear whether those features will be enough to win over Chinese consumers, according to Bloomberg. Local smartphone makers including Huawei Technologies Co., Xiaomi Corp., Oppo Guangdong Mobile Telecommunications Corp. and Vivo Mobile Communication Co. have already introduced their own AI services, and Apple would be launching a two-year-old set of relatively basic AI features in the country.
The report came one day after Apple said in the footnotes of its HomeView announcement that it is "working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward" to launch Siri AI in Europe. The assistant also remains unavailable in Europe because of regulatory issues.