Apple officially announced today its plans for Apple Intelligence in China, with the first batch covering features like real-time translation, photo clean-up, and Writing Tools, opening for beta testing on November 4.
The company stated that Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated into various apps and experiences users engage with daily, helping them write easily, express themselves, and handle tasks efficiently.
Apple Intelligence is powered by generative models built by Apple, helping users overcome language barriers with real-time translation; rewrite, proofread, and summarize with Writing Tools; quickly learn more about things around them with Visual Intelligence; remove distracting objects from photos with Clean Up; create new emojis that match their current mood with Genmoji, and much more.
Additionally, Apple has partnered with Alibaba to integrate support for Qwen into certain Apple Intelligence experiences, allowing users in China to use Alibaba's Qwen directly within Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence, including features related to text and image understanding.
This series of Apple Intelligence features will be available for beta testing starting November 4 with the latest iOS developer beta, and will be released to users in China with the official launch of iOS 27.3 in December.
Support for other platforms will be rolled out after obtaining necessary approvals.
It is worth noting that Apple emphasized that this update does not include Siri AI or other next-generation Apple Intelligence features announced at WWDC 2026.
Here are the first features Apple is rolling out to users in China on supported iPhones:
- Real-time translation helps users communicate across specific languages when sending messages or talking, seamlessly integrated into the Messages, FaceTime, and Phone apps. Users can also use this feature for face-to-face conversations with AirPods 4 (with active noise cancellation), AirPods Pro 2, and later models.
- Writing Tools help users rewrite, proofread, and summarize entered text.
- Visual Intelligence helps users instantly understand objects and places around them using the iPhone camera³.
- The Clean Up tool in the Photos app removes distracting objects while preserving the original atmosphere of the shot.
- Genmoji allows users to generate their own custom emojis simply by entering a text description.
- Natural language search in the Photos app makes it easier to find specific photos or videos by simply entering a description.
- Users can create Memory movies in the Photos app simply by entering a description.
- The Priority section at the top of the Mail app inbox displays the most urgent emails, such as lunch invitations for the day or boarding passes.
- Email Summaries allow users to view key points of an email or long email conversation by simply tapping "Generate Summary."
- Smart Reply suggests quick response texts for users in the Mail and Messages apps.
- Notification Summaries provide key information directly on the Lock Screen, making it convenient for users to quickly glance through lengthy or stacked notifications.
- Priority Notifications place the most urgent items at the top of notifications, allowing users to immediately see matters that may require attention.
- Reduce Interruptions Focus mode only delivers notifications that need immediate handling.
- Audio transcription summaries in the Notes app are automatically generated, making key information easy to see at a glance.
- Users can generate summaries of call transcripts, highlighting important details.