Apple Intelligence Is Coming to iOS in the EU in April

News from Apple that I let slip by a few weeks ago, but that seems apt again today:

Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that delivers helpful and relevant intelligence, will soon be available in more languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (simplified) — as well as localized English for Singapore and India.

These new languages will be accessible in nearly all regions around the world with the release of iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 in April, and developers can start to test these releases today.

With the upcoming software updates, iPhone and iPad users in the EU will have access to Apple Intelligence features for the first time, and Apple Intelligence will expand to a new platform in U.S. English with Apple Vision Pro — helping users communicate, collaborate, and express themselves in entirely new ways.

Given that Apple Intelligence isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, I think in the grand scheme of things, it’ll wind up being filed away under “Oh yeah, remember that?” that the EU got it 4-5 months after it debuted. (Clean Up in Photos is often great, and I genuinely enjoy notification summaries and miss them now that they’re disabled for news apps; the rest I don’t use, and the most ambitious aspects of Apple Intelligence are (you may have heard) delayed for everyone, not just the EU.)

Apple was concerned that the EU’s hardline interpretation of the DMA was such that the European Commission considered it a violation of the DMA that Apple Intelligence wasn’t an interchangeable component. Like the way the EC forced Apple to open up iOS to alternative app marketplaces — there was uncertainty whether they’d demand the same for system-integrated AI. And if that’s what the EC had demanded, they simply wouldn’t have gotten system-integrated AI for years. But I’m not sure how to square up today’s decisions — requiring Apple to enable third-party alternatives to system-level features like AirPlay and AirDrop — with an interpretation that the EU will be fine with Apple Intelligence only offering Apple’s own AI (along with Apple’s approved partners, like OpenAI).

I think the regime change at the European Commission has changed things to some degree, but quietly. Former competition chief Margrethe Vestager was a firebrand. Back in June last year, after Apple had announced that Apple Intelligence would be delayed indefinitely in the EU for iOS, she made clear that she thought it was anti-competitive:

“I find that very interesting that they say we will now deploy AI where we’re not obliged to enable competition. I think that is that is the most sort of stunning open declaration that they know 100% that this is another way of disabling competition where they have a stronghold already.”

But Vestager is gone, and until today we hadn’t heard a whit about DMA compliance from her successor, Teresa Ribera. In September, when the proceedings that resulted in today’s decisions opened, I wrote:

Also worth noting: Margrethe Vestager is on her way out, about to be replaced by Spanish socialist Teresa Ribera, a career climate expert (which, possibly, might give her an affinity for Apple, far and away the most climate-friendly large tech company) with no experience in competition law. To me that makes Ribera an odd choice for the competition chief job, but apparently that makes sense in the EU. It remains unclear to me whether Ribera supports Vestager’s crusade against the DMA’s designated “gatekeepers”. If she doesn’t, is this all for naught?

Until today, that remained an open question. Now it appears the Commission’s crusading course is unchanged — it’s just no longer accompanied by inflammatory commentary from the commissioners in charge.

★ Wednesday, 19 March 2025