Apple has now confirmed what we could only piece together from reports on 16 October. In a press release on its Chinese newsroom dated 31 October, Apple said the first Apple Intelligence features for users in China will open for testing in the iOS developer beta from 4 November and roll out to everyone with iOS 27.3 in December. Alibaba confirmed the same day, via Xinhua Finance, that Qwen (千问) is built into Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence. The part that matters for search: Apple’s release names Alibaba, and only Alibaba.
Where Qwen shows up on a Chinese iPhone
- Siri. For “certain requests”, Siri can hand the question to Qwen and answer with Qwen’s general knowledge directly inside Siri. Users can also ask Qwen about their own photos and documents, including PDFs and presentations. Alibaba says Siri asks for consent before any question, document or image is sent to Qwen.
- Visual Intelligence. Point the camera at something and choose “Ask Qwen” (询问千问) to identify it. Visual Intelligence is opened from Camera Control, the Action button or Control Centre.
- Writing Tools. “Compose with Qwen” (千问创作) writes original content, and images, from a prompt, system-wide.
Access is opt-in, with either Sign in with Apple or an existing Qwen app account. Alibaba says user requests and replies won’t be used to train its models. The integration needs an iPhone bought in China, or a device whose location and Apple Account region are both set to China. Supported models are the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone 16 and later, the iPhone Air and the iPhone Duo, with Siri and device language set to English or Simplified Chinese.
The rest of the package is Apple’s own models: Live Translation, Writing Tools rewrite and summarise, Clean Up in Photos, Genmoji, natural-language photo search, priority mail and notification summaries, and Type to Siri. As 9to5Mac points out, Siri AI and the other features announced at WWDC 2026 are not included. iPhone comes first, and other platforms follow “after the necessary approvals”.
What happened to Baidu?
In October, China Daily and Economic Daily reported that Baidu would support search, Siri-related functions and Visual Intelligence, and iOS 27 teardowns found a “Baidu Visual Search” module. Neither Apple’s release nor Alibaba’s announcement mentions Baidu. In the official version, the camera lookup is branded “Ask Qwen”.
That doesn’t prove Baidu is out. Apple rarely names search back-ends, and a retrieval provider can sit behind Qwen or behind Siri’s ordinary web answers without a credit. But I’d now treat “Baidu powers Apple’s AI search in China” as unconfirmed, not settled. The first developer beta on 4 November is the place to check: what Visual Intelligence cites, and which engine Siri’s web results come from.
My take
For search marketers, the change is that Siri and the camera become question boxes on every supported iPhone in China, and the visible answer engine is Qwen. That fits Alibaba’s broader push, from Qwen Go! and agentic commerce to Quark moving ahead of Shenma as Alibaba’s search front door. Brands that have treated Qwen as “just a model” should start checking what it says about them, the same way they audit DeepSeek or Doubao.
Two caveats. Consent prompts and “certain requests” mean most Siri queries may still never reach Qwen. And December is a beta and a point release away. The 27.3 beta is the first real chance to see what Qwen cites and whether Baidu appears anywhere in the chain.