Hands-on with iPhone China-market AI developer beta: Writing, Visual Intelligence, and Qwen integration in Siri

Just now, Apple's China AI officially opened developer Beta testing to users in mainland China, and is planned to be officially released with iOS 27.3 in December.

According to information published by Apple, the first batch of supported models includes iPhone 15 Pro, 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 series and later supported models, as well as iPhone Air and iPhone Duo.

Next, go to "Settings" > "General" > "Software Update" > "Beta Updates," select iOS Developer Beta, and download and install the iOS 27.3 beta.

Considering the stability of developer beta versions, it is recommended to back up data in advance and try to use a spare phone for the experience.

It is worth mentioning that this update does not yet include the next-generation Siri AI features Apple announced at WWDC 2026; stronger personal context understanding and autonomous cross-app execution capabilities are still awaited.

· Writing Tools

Apple has integrated AI writing capabilities into the system's text processing interface. After users select text, they can directly invoke proofreading, rewriting, summarization and other functions, and can also adjust the content to a friendly, formal or concise tone, or organize it into bullet points, lists and tables.

For example, when faced with an industry report of several thousand words, users can directly generate a summary, and can also organize lengthy meeting notes into clear bullet points and tables, reducing the time spent manually sorting information.

More noteworthy is that Apple has also added "Qianwen Creation," allowing users to generate articles, emails and other content, and even images, based on natural language requests.

For example, when preparing to tell your boss that the workload is too heavy, the original words might be "The targets this month are too high, I really can't finish them; either give me more people or reduce the tasks." Through "Qianwen Creation," you can directly ask the AI to rewrite it into a highly emotionally intelligent work report while retaining the core request.

From the proofreading, summarization and formatting of the native writing tools to the free creation capabilities provided by Qianwen, Apple has put both into the same system-level writing entry point.

· Visual Intelligence

Visual Intelligence lets users learn about the things in front of them through the iPhone camera.

Users can long-press the iPhone's camera button to bring up the Visual Intelligence interface, with three options at the bottom: "Ask," "Translate" and "Search," corresponding to different usage scenarios.

Among them, "Ask" on the left is supported by Qianwen's visual understanding capabilities. It can identify objects captured by the camera and answer questions based on the content of the image. For example, point the camera at an English menu and ask "Which dishes are suitable for people who don't eat seafood," and the AI can give suggestions based on the menu content.

The "Translate" option in the middle can directly recognize and translate foreign-language text in the lens, making it suitable for reading overseas menus, street signs and product descriptions.

However, if your phone has third-party apps with visual search integration, such as Dewu, you can also get Dewu search results, and users can directly choose according to their actual needs in front of them.

· Photo Eraser

According to information previously announced by Apple, the Photos app this time mainly gains three AI features: the eraser tool, natural language search and memory movie generation.

During our experience with the eraser tool, we also found that the Photos app occasionally crashes. Considering that this is still a developer Beta version, the stability of related features still needs improvement.

In this developer Beta experience, I have currently only found the eraser tool and have not yet found the entry points for natural language search and memory movie generation. Friends who can successfully try them are also welcome to share their actual impressions in the comments.

In addition, it should be mentioned that this test used an iPhone 16 Pro. Even when used in a normal room-temperature environment, the phone still heats up noticeably, especially during continuous use of AI features.

· Image Playground

Image Playground allows users to generate exclusive emoji through text descriptions.

For example, enter "a panda wearing glowing sunglasses and drinking an iced Americano," or "a computer monitor crying bitterly because its requirements were revised ten times," and the system will generate the corresponding emoji.

· Notes and Call Summaries

For example, I asked the AI to process a simulated call recording about a weekend dinner. Two people originally planned to eat hot pot, then considered Sichuan cuisine, and finally, because a friend does not eat spicy food, decided to go to a Cantonese restaurant downstairs from the office, and also discussed dishes such as steamed sea bass and roast goose.

· Siri Upgrade

Among all the features, Siri's changes may attract the most attention.

In this update, Siri supports text input, understands mid-sentence changes, and can maintain context in continuous conversations.

For example, if a user says, "Set an alarm for 7 a.m. for me—never mind, change it to 8:30, with the note 'topic selection meeting,'" Siri can understand the operation the user ultimately wants.

More importantly, Apple has also officially introduced Qianwen into part of the Siri experience.

Users can ask Siri complex knowledge questions, and can also ask questions about materials such as photos, PDFs and presentations. For example, when I asked Siri how much a plane ticket from Guangzhou to Shanghai costs, Siri gave an answer from Qianwen, and I could also jump to the Qianwen app with one tap.

APPSO's hands-on test found that simple questions can be answered directly by Siri, while complex needs such as shopping, sending express deliveries and travel planning can jump to the Qianwen App and call the Taobao, SF Express, Hello and other services connected to it to continue processing.

For example, after a user identifies a piece of clothing through Visual Intelligence, they can further go to Qianwen to find the same item on Taobao, compare prices and proceed with placing an order.

In addition, Apple Intelligence's real-time translation is integrated into Messages, FaceTime and the Phone app. Paired with supported AirPods, it can also translate face-to-face conversations in real time, reducing the hassle of frequently switching translation apps during cross-language communication.

The Mail app adds priority mail, mail summaries and smart replies, and the notification system also adds notification summaries, priority notifications and a Reduce Interruptions Focus mode, helping users find important information faster among large numbers of emails and notifications.

However, some complex tasks require jumping to the Qianwen App to continue processing. Whether cross-app context can be retained and whether multiple operations can be completed continuously still needs further observation.

Interestingly, in the past decade or so of smartphone development, Apple has always played the role of market educator.

From Touch ID to AirPods and the Dynamic Island, Apple has often been responsible for bringing new technologies and interaction methods to the public, after which domestic manufacturers quickly follow up and use price and localization advantages to promote them to a broader market.

Over the past two years, domestic manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor, OPPO and vivo have taken turns on stage. From AI erasure and smart summaries to cross-app Agents, they have discussed almost every AI phone story that can be told, over and over.

Apple, arriving late, instead unexpectedly became a beneficiary who enjoys the shade.

This article is from the WeChat public account "APPSO," author: APPSO, which discovers tomorrow's products, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.