Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features Apple announced in June will not be available in China when iOS 27 arrives on Monday, September 14. Apple’s June press release says they “will not be available in China while Apple works through regulatory requirements,” and Apple has published no date, no partial rollout and no workaround.
That is a wider restriction than the one Apple applied in the European Union, where only Siri AI is held back and only on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Apple’s China wording names no platform exception at all, and it covers the new features as a group rather than Siri AI alone.
Key facts: Apple Intelligence in China
| Item | Apple’s position | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | “Siri AI and the other new Apple Intelligence features will not be available in China” | Apple’s press release, June 8 |
| Reason given | “While Apple works through regulatory requirements” | Apple’s press release, June 8 |
| Date for China | None given | Apple’s press release |
| Platform exception | None stated, unlike the EU, where Mac and Apple Vision Pro are exempt | Apple’s press release, June 8 |
| Product-page wording | China is not named; the pages say only that some features may not be available in all regions or languages | Apple’s iOS 27 page |
| Chinese language support | Chinese (Simplified) and Chinese (Traditional) are both on Apple’s Apple Intelligence language list | Apple’s Apple Intelligence page |
| Elsewhere | Siri AI beta in English on September 14, five more languages in October | Apple’s press release, September 9 |
| iOS 27 itself | Free update on September 14 for iPhone 11 and later | Apple’s iOS 27 page |
What Apple’s sentence covers, and what it leaves open
The phrase doing the work is “the other new Apple Intelligence features.” Apple has not published a list of which features that includes, so the practical scope is unclear from Apple’s own text. The features introduced alongside Siri AI in June include Visual Intelligence and the Siri mode in Camera, Write with Siri, the enhanced Clean Up tool, Spatial Reframing and Extend in Photos, photorealistic Image Playground, Safari Notify Me and the Home app’s clip search.
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Apple also has not said whether features already shipped in earlier versions of Apple Intelligence are affected, or whether the restriction is tied to the region a device is sold in, the language it is set to, or the Apple Account region. Its product pages fall back on a general line rather than naming the country.
China and the EU are two different restrictions
| China | European Union | Elsewhere | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Siri AI on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | No | No | Yes, beta in English |
| Siri AI on Mac and Apple Vision Pro | Not stated as available | Yes, in a supported language | Yes |
| Other new Apple Intelligence features | No | Yes | Yes |
| Apple’s stated reason | Regulatory requirements | The Digital Markets Act | Not applicable |
| Date | None given | None given | September 14, 2026 |
The EU restriction is documented in detail, including Apple’s rejected “Trusted System Agent” proposal and a quote from Craig Federighi. The China restriction gets one sentence. Apple has not said which authority it is dealing with, what approval it needs, or whether it has filed anything.
Chinese is a supported language, and that is a separate question
Both Chinese (Simplified) and Chinese (Traditional) appear on Apple’s list of 16 Apple Intelligence languages, along with English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Vietnamese. Language support and regional availability are different things on Apple’s pages, and the Siri AI language list is shorter still: English at launch, with French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish in October.
So Chinese is not among the six languages Siri AI will speak this year in any region, which means the China question is about more than approval. Apple has not said when Siri AI will add Chinese, or whether the two timelines are connected.
What Chinese buyers do get on September 14
The rest of iOS 27 is not part of Apple’s restriction as described. According to Apple’s iOS 27 page, that includes the Liquid Glass refinements and the new transparency slider in Settings, faster app launches, a Photos library that loads up to 70 percent faster, AirDrop up to 80 percent faster, the new child safety controls, GymKit on iPhone, AirPods Custom EQ, the revamped iCloud Shared Albums and the accessibility additions.
Hardware is unaffected too. The iPhone 18 Pro and the iPhone Duo both use the A20 Pro chip that Apple lists as Apple Intelligence hardware, so this is a software and regulatory matter rather than a device limitation. Apple has not published a country-by-country list of where Siri AI is available at launch, only the exclusions.
What Apple has not said
- Any date, or even a year, for Siri AI or the new Apple Intelligence features in China.
- Which regulatory requirements are outstanding, or which agency has to sign off.
- Exactly which features are covered by “the other new Apple Intelligence features.”
- Whether Mac and Apple Vision Pro users in China get Siri AI, as they do in the EU.
- How the restriction is applied: by device region, Apple Account region, or system language.
- When Siri AI will support Chinese in any region.
iOS 27 ships as a free update on Monday, September 14, and Siri AI launches the same day as a beta in English outside the EU and China, according to Apple’s press release. We will update this article if Apple publishes a China timeline, and our event recap covers the rest of the September 9 announcements.
