Although Apple Intelligence is still in beta with the forthcoming iOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 Sequoia updates, appears that the system may not be region-locked as initially thought.
When Apple Intelligence was announced in June, Apple said that its AI features would only be available in US English – and although Apple Intelligence works in other countries, the first betas required users to change the region of their device to the US. It seems that Apple is dropping this requirement.
With the third beta of the forthcoming updates, which was released to the developer community on Wednesday, Apple has changed the release notes for the updates. Whereas previously the release notes said that the device region had to be set to the US, the notes for beta 3 only mention that users must set Siri to the US English language.
9to5Mac has confirmed that it’s now possible to try out the Apple Intelligence features by changing Siri’s language and the device language to US English, all without changing the region settings. Changing the region of the device can affect things like the format of phone numbers and calendars.
Granted, features like Writing Tools and Summarization will only work in English, and users in the EU and China are still unable to activate Apple Intelligence.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the hardware requirements for Apple Intelligence remain the same: iPhone 15 Pro or later, or iPads and Macs with the M1 chip or later.
If you’ve had a chance to try the new beta, please let us know about your experience in the comments.
Via 9to5Mac and beta.apple.com