At the iPhone 16 launch event last September, Apple announced details about Apple Intelligence. At the time, everyone was excited to use it, but unfortunately, Apple Intelligence initially only supported American English. Although localized English for Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK was later added, users of other languages still had to operate Apple Intelligence in English, which was somewhat disappointing. However, Apple recently announced that it will soon support eight languages, including Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, expected to launch in April. This means more Apple users across different languages will be able to experience Apple Intelligence’s features.
Tim Cook personally confirmed that Apple Intelligence will support Chinese, but it might not be available in Taiwan.
Apple CEO Tim Cook mentioned during Apple’s Q4 2024 earnings call that Apple will launch eight new languages this April: French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
Actually, at last September’s launch event, Apple announced that Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish would be added this year, though it wasn’t clear at the time which month. Tim Cook’s comments during the earnings call then confirmed the exact release timing—the eight new languages are expected to arrive with the iOS 18.4 update this April.
Although Apple will support Chinese this April, according to Tim Cook’s remarks, it seems only Simplified Chinese will be launched in April. Apple Taiwan’s official site currently only says “Chinese” and does not mention whether both Simplified and Traditional Chinese will be supported. Although this may not be what everyone expects, it doesn’t mean Taiwan cannot use Chinese Apple Intelligence—just that there may be some differences in usage.
Currently, Apple devices in mainland China and Apple accounts located in mainland China cannot use Apple Intelligence. We will have to wait until Apple Intelligence launches in mainland China before supported devices can activate and use it. Based on this, it seems China might enable Apple Intelligence as early as April this year.
All of the above is still just speculation. When Chinese Apple Intelligence launches, it’s still uncertain whether it will support both Traditional and Simplified Chinese, or only Simplified Chinese. Although any form of Chinese would work, there are still some differences in usage between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. If only Simplified Chinese is offered at that point, I wonder whether users in Taiwan and other regions that use Traditional Chinese will be affected.
Source: KOCPC Chinese