Apple Partners With Alibaba to Bring iPhone AI Features to China
Apple will partner with Alibaba to offer AI features in China, the Chinese company's chairman said on Thursday, resolving months of speculation around Apple's strategy in the region.
"They talked to a number of companies in China," said Joe Tsai at the World Government Summit in Dubai. "In the end they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones. We feel extremely honoured to do business with a great company like Apple."
Alibaba stocks surged as much as 8.6% on a report by The Information that Apple is working with the e-commerce giant to roll out AI features in China. Apple has not yet rolled out its full suite of AI features in the country because of regulations that require it to partner with a local company.
Apple devices outside of the country use a combination of proprietary Apple Intelligence and OpenAI's ChatGPT to provide AI features. The Information reports that both Alibaba and Apple have already submitted materials to authorities for approval.
Today's development follows news earlier in the week that Apple "passed over" the Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which recently made waves in the industry for being developed at a significantly lower cost than rivals. Today's report says that Apple initially considered Baidu as its primary AI partner last year, but its AI models did not meet Apple's requirements.
The AI partnership comes at a crucial time for Apple, which faced a significant setback in China in 2024, relinquishing its position as the country's top smartphone vendor. According to market research firm Canalys, Apple's annual shipments in the country declined by 17%, creating an opportunity for domestic manufacturer Vivo to take the lead.
Popular Stories
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence.
The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
Apple at WWDC previewed a bunch of new features coming in its updated operating systems, but certain changes will have been met with dismay by third-party developers who already offer apps with equivalent or similar features. In other words, their product has been "sherlocked" by Apple.
When Apple creates an app or a feature that has functionality found in a third-party app, it is referred...
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why.
In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look.
Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
At today's WWDC 2025 keynote event, Apple unveiled a new design that will inform the next decade of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS development, so needless to say, it was a busy day. Apple also unveiled a ton of new features for the iPhone, an overhauled Spotlight interface for the Mac, and a ton of updates that make the iPad more like a Mac than ever before.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles.
iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
As we previously reported, iOS 26 enhances Apple Wallet app boarding passes in a few ways. First, the passes now support Live Activities, allowing you to keep track of a flight at a glance on your iPhone's Lock Screen, and in the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro and newer. In addition, new shortcuts below the passes provide one-tap access to Apple Maps for airport directions, and to the Find...
