Apple plans December China AI launch without rebuilt Siri

Apple plans to introduce Apple Intelligence in mainland China in December with the iOS 27.3 update, but the reported rollout will omit its rebuilt Siri AI assistant and other newer features. The schedule and feature list come from people familiar with Apple’s plans, as reported by Bloomberg. Apple has not announced the launch. If it proceeds as described, the initial Chinese release will include Genmoji, notification summaries, writing tools and Clean Up in Photos, which removes unwanted objects from images. The rollout is expected to exclude Image Playground, Apple’s image-generation tool, and limit some text-generation functions in certain apps. The rebuilt Siri AI and other features introduced this year are also not expected to be included. The reported initial package instead draws on Apple Intelligence features first introduced in 2024. Apple received Chinese permits on September 29 allowing recent iPhones to support Apple Intelligence and Alibaba AI models, according to Bloomberg’s reporting.