Starting next month, users of compatible iPhones will be able to enjoy the full Apple Intelligence features (in beta) as part of the expected iOS 18.1 update. Unless they live in the EU or China – the two regions where Apple will not be releasing the new AI features just yet.
First off, let’s look at which devices qualify to get Apple Intellgence in the first place. Due to NPU performance and RAM requirements, only the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max from the older models are supported, but all new models (iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max) are compatible.
You will need iOS 18.1, of course, at least 4GB of available storage and setting the device and Siri language to a supported language.
Only US English will be supported in the beginning, but other regional English variants will be added in December. Next year, the language selection will expand to support Chinese, French, Japanese and Spanish.
Apple Intelligence will only support English at first, more languages coming next year
However, even if you set your iPhone and Siri to a supported language, it will not work if you have your Apple ID Country/Region set to a EU country and you are physically in the EU. It will work when traveling outside of the EU, though.
EU users of iOS 18 beta also suggest there is a workaround to get Apple Intelligence to work in the EU – you have to set your AppleID region to a supported one like the US. This, however, has far greater implications. Changing the region requires you to empty your iTunes store balance and cancel all your Apple subscriptions beforehand. It also requires you to enter a fake address where located in that region that may or may not work as a billing address for your payment methods (if you care about purchasing apps and services from Apple). Upon changing the region, you will also lose access to all the apps you’ve paid for in your regional AppStore and will have to start afresh in the new AppStore.
Compared to the EU, the restrictions for China are even stricter – Apple Intelligence won’t work on any iPhones bought in mainland China. For iPhones bought elsewhere, Apple Intelligence will not work while they are in mainland China or if your Apple ID region is set to mainland China.
The good news is that phones bought in the EU will eventually get Apple Intelligence. What’s holding things up, anyway?
Regulation, mostly, specifically the Digital Markets Act (DMA). First, the EU wants independent experts to be able to verify that Apple is keeping customer data private regularly. This is something that Apple specifically mentioned during its presentation – AI features that don’t run on-device will instead run on Apple servers that exclusively use Apple silicon, which will never store your data or images.
However, this tight integration between Apple Intelligence and other Apple services might be hurting it. Remember that DMA designates Apple as a “gatekeeper” , which means that it has to respect strict rules about fair competition and transparency due to the large number of consumers using its products and services. The Core Technology Fee that Apple insists on charging developers could prove to be an issue as well.
It’s not that it can’t be done; this is more a case of Apple being cautious. The company is allegedly in talks with EU regulators about the best way to implement Apple Intelligence and other affected features.
CNBC reported that Apple is holding back iPhone Mirroring and enhancements to SharePlay for EU consumers due to similar concerns over DMA rules. Apple claims that “the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security.”
Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1 will support the following features, and you can expect all these features to be MIA on iPhones in the EU and China. You can learn more about Apple Intelligence here.
- Writing Tools
- Clean Up in Photos
- Create a Memory movie in Photos
- Natural language search in Photos
- Notification summaries
- Reduce Interruptions Focus
- Intelligent Breakthrough & Silencing in Focus
- Priority messages in Mail
- Smart Reply in Mail and Messages
- Summaries in Mail and Messages
- Siri enhancements, including product knowledge, more resilient request handling, new look and feel, more natural voice, the ability to type to Siri, and more