Apple Intelligence Goes Live in China with Alibaba's Qwen on iOS 27.3 Preview

On November 4, 2026, Apple pushed the first developer beta of iOS 27.3 to iPhone, along with the first watchOS 27.3 beta. According to IT之家, Apple announced that Apple Intelligence features would open for testing with the iOS developer beta starting November 4, and would be available to users in China when iOS 27.3 officially launches in December. Support on other platforms would follow once necessary approvals are obtained. IT之家 had previously reported that Apple Intelligence and the related Alibaba Qwen large model had received approval.

IT之家's hands-on testing confirmed that the China-specific Apple Intelligence and Siri section went live in the iOS 27.3 developer preview, with a settings entry appearing after updating; iPhone 15 Pro and newer models are supported. Apple Intelligence in China is a collaboration with Alibaba that integrates Qwen into parts of the experience. Users in China can invoke Qwen directly within Siri, Writing Tools, and Visual Intelligence, covering text and image understanding. By signing into a Qwen account, or using Sign in with Apple, users can access Qwen within the system without switching to a standalone app. Alibaba previously confirmed that the Qwen integration would extend to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.

The first features to open for Chinese users focus on basic, high-frequency scenarios: live translation, Writing Tools, Visual Intelligence, photo clean-up, and Genmoji. Live translation is built into Messages, FaceTime calls, and the Phone app, and supports face-to-face conversation translation via AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 or later. Writing Tools offer rewriting, proofreading, and summarization. Visual Intelligence lets users point the camera at objects and places to learn about them. The Photos app's cleanup tool removes unwanted objects while preserving the original mood. Genmoji lets users generate custom emoji from text descriptions. Bloomberg Technology reported that the iOS 27.3 and watchOS 27.3 betas also add always-listening AI tools and a new Health app. The feature is currently in developer beta, with the official release expected for Chinese users in December.