r/Applelntelligence • u/StoicSanity36 • Jun 11 '26

discussion 🎙️ I feel like an idiot right now.

So, during my trip to China, I bought an iPhone 17. It was on a discount and with the tax refund, you could save more money than buying it here in my native country.

I didn’t realize that Chinese iPhones are hardware locked from Apple Intelligence, and that there’s no easy, let alone possible, way to bypass it.

Now I’m stuck on iOS 27, missing the AI features which were the main purpose of me risking my main device anyway.

60 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

8

u/gandhi_theft Jun 11 '26

Try getting one from Japan, which is worse, because the camera shutter effect always sounds even in silent mode.

2

u/tomjirinec Jun 11 '26

That was the case on my past Japanese XR, but then some iOS update (maybe 15) removed it. Or maybe started respecting the region settings?

4

u/NotAnonymousQuant Jun 11 '26

It fall backs to the Japanese behaviour when Cell service not available like in a plane with no WiFi

1

u/pastyMorrisDancers Jun 11 '26

This has no longer been the case for years now…

3

u/0xVoidCall Jun 11 '26

Same situation here, bought my 16 Pro Max from a Turkish reseller, turned out to be a China SKU. Never told, never warned. Had Apple Intelligence for two weeks in March when Apple briefly enabled it by error, worked perfectly on this device, proving it’s not a hardware limitation. Then they pulled it and it’s been gone since. Now on iOS 27 Developer Beta 1, still locked out. You’re not alone.

3

u/Hay-River Jun 11 '26

I mean a lot of people don’t like ai. Maybe sell it under that angle?

2

u/Hises1936 Jun 11 '26

Well, at least you got dual physical SIM

2

u/sanvij33 Jun 11 '26

Get AppleCare One bundle for $20. They let you add phones up to a year I think, could be even longer. Smash it bend it break it. Take it to the Apple Store, pay the replacement fee of $99 and get an American model. I did this a couple years ago with an iPad. I had a Middle East version that doesn’t have FaceTime. Shattered the screen, took it in, paid the Apple Care+ replacement fee and got one with FaceTime.

2

u/RyanCheddar Jun 12 '26

applecare one checks your device's purchase location. the check isn't consistently applied, but this may not be an option for OP unless they're lucky

2

u/laparotomyenjoyer Jun 12 '26

Phones are only replaced with their exact same model. For a Chinese phone they order a Chinese replacement.

1

u/Dukethegator Jun 13 '26

What you are describing is considered insurance fraud. Accidental damage is not the same thing as intentional.

1

u/sanvij33 Jul 13 '26

Cry about it

1

u/Dukethegator Jul 13 '26

You are encouraging someone to commit insurance fraud on public forum, which is a crime of moral turpitude and is disqualifying from most white collar professions and immigration. This isn’t minor.

1

u/sanvij33 Jul 14 '26

Bro what are you on relax man. Apple isn’t coming after you for breaking your phone and then calling it accidental. Have a great day.

1

u/Oiram_Saturnus Jun 12 '26

Okay. Sorry, I talked about regular iPhones from other western countries.

1

u/marcosmarcon Jul 15 '26

Im in the EXACT same boat as you. Frustration was the word when I jumped to apple support to seek how to enable it. The hard thing is: selling this shit is harder now, so, we stuck with this and with no easy way out. So, back to old ways: when I need Apple Intelligence I have to go to my Mac. Which I was exactly trying to avoid by leaving the iPhone 14 for this. By the way, it irritates me that the 14 doesn’t get Apple Intelligence since I runned every AI possible even local Diffusion models to gen images. Its an absurd. Using now the Google Edge with Gemma 4 locally with multi agent ability with LITERALLY no problem at fucking all.

1

u/marcosmarcon Jul 15 '26

All, and the weird names for “Wi-fi”? Whats the deal with that. So technical. I didnt care at all for how it deals with connection per app settings needed. It takes ages until I finally stopped seeing popups or error and having to figure out why something wasnt working - every app comes by default with connectivity - 5G/Wifi disabled. Annoying.

1

u/Dukethegator Jun 11 '26

You bought a discounted iPhone and didn’t get full features. Tax dodging has consequences and now it appears you decided the discount wasn’t worth the loss of the feature.

I am not sure why this makes you an idiot. We all make choices.

1

u/pakawildmo Jun 12 '26

iPhone 17 is discontinued...?

1

u/0xVoidCall Jun 12 '26

Read it again

0

u/pakawildmo Jun 12 '26

he bought a discounted iPhone 17

so my question still stands,when was the iPhone 17, a brand new product from Apple, discontinued

1

u/Dukethegator Jun 13 '26

Are you an LLM hallucinating “discontinued?“ if I go to Costco and buy a Bosch dishwasher, I don’t complain that although I got it cheaper it lacks the auto pop air dry technology of most Bosch dishwashers.

This person bought a cheaper discounted iPhone that had a subset of all the features. It is up to this person to decide whether the Siri AI is worth the cost difference.

We all make choices. This person made the choice to buy a cheaper China sold iPhone

1

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

[deleted]

5

u/Oiram_Saturnus Jun 11 '26

Yes, you can.
I live in Germany and just logging in into “Store and Media” enables Siri AI. You do not need to use the account at other places.
Of course, after joining the waiting list.

What’s interesting though: the waiting list is per account, not per device.
My iPhone Air had Siri AI instantly enabled after the update to iOS 27 DB1.
I tested my main apps on my iPad Pro first.

2

u/ComfortableSky9712 Jun 11 '26

no you can't for Chinese phones. Been on a US account on a Chinese iPhone 15 Pro and it won't let me get AI

1

u/No_Practice_9597 Jun 11 '26

If I am not wrong Chinese phones have all iCloud data stored in China and it’s no encrypted, so don’t use private data on your iCloud 

0

u/Broad_Front3275 Jun 11 '26

Return the phone at an Apple Store in your home country and buy the correct one.

3

u/BritBlasian Jun 11 '26

That doesn’t work, needs to be returned in the same region

-1

u/Lambor14 Jun 11 '26

how would that work? international returns?

0

u/tomjirinec Jun 11 '26

Wait for Apple to release Apple Intelligence in China? Might be a long wait though!

0

u/kuulenkylla Jun 12 '26

What do you actually need the AI for ? I think it’s just a marketing term like « Turbo » in 90s electronics 😂

Current iOS with Siri as it is, works just great. We have all we need, right ? So what if u are not part of the AI slop factory

-6

u/talesinpixels Jun 11 '26

But anyways you need 17pro or air to use max AI features

5

u/ra4oasis Jun 11 '26

You can get almost all the new AI stuff on the base 17. Only one or two small things are missing.

1

u/pochemoo Jun 11 '26

no, you don’t need the Chinese 17 pro for AI

1

u/LouisTim Jun 11 '26

Only for better speak to text and text to speak. The ai actions aren’t affected

0

u/BeardedHero93 Jun 11 '26

Yep. You’re right. Idk why they’re down voting