Apple gears up for AI product push in China

Apple is preparing to launch its first foldable smartphone in China next week, featuring Alibaba’s AI as part of its generative suite, Apple Intelligence. This move is part of Apple's strategy to compete with Huawei, the dominant player in the Chinese market, which has lagged behind in AI features due to regulatory delays. The Chinese smartphone market has been struggling with weak consumer spending and rising hardware costs, but new entrants such as AI lab StepFun are emerging with innovative products.

StepFun recently launched an AI agent smartphone equipped with a $600 AI agent, a move described as "quite bold" by an analyst, given the challenges in the industry.

Brief written by urgent.news from Semafor's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.