Apple Intelligence Beta to Launch in China in Late October, Siri Not Included, Tim Cook Says

On Oct. 15, Tim Cook, executive chairman of Apple's board, said during an interview in Shanghai that Apple Intelligence and Alibaba's Qwen large language model have been approved and will launch a beta version in China in late October 2026.

The initial features include real-time translation, writing tools, and a photo cleanup tool, but Siri AI is not included. Cook said he is glad that the first batch of core Apple Intelligence features will gradually become available. Apple Intelligence is Apple's suite of AI features, while Qwen is a large language model developed by Alibaba.