Apple has stepped up its efforts to prevent users in the European Union from accessing Apple Intelligence. The first betas of iOS and iPadOS 18.1 were released earlier this week, and it is currently very difficult to try out the AI features on these two platforms from France.
In the settings, a message indicates that Apple Intelligence is not available in France.
Unlike what we’ve seen with the Vision Pro or with third-party stores, the regional blocking of AI functions is quite advanced. Changing the region and the language of the tablet does nothing, as does connecting to a VPN. A few smart people seem to have succeeded on iPad, but no one (at least to our knowledge) has found a way around iPhone. Apparently, Apple takes into account the user’s geographic location based on certain details of their connection, which complicates the tinkering.
A method has been shared on Reddit running on the tablets of some lucky people. The idea is that you will have to connect your Mac to a VPN before transforming it into a Wi-Fi sharing point to which the iPad will connect. It is not possible to go through a usual connection sharing on iPhone while connected by a VPN. The process also involves changing some settings in English and disabling the private relay and other location services on iPad.
I spent a good part of the morning trying this trick, with no luck. Even with a reset iPad set to a US account connected to a Mac with VPN, the tablet still tells me I’m in the wrong country. If you’re curious, Reddit users recommend using TunnelBear (NordVPN sharing doesn’t work on my Mac, for example).
It’s quite surprising to see Apple impose such restrictions to put spokes in the wheels of the curious on mobile… where everything is much simpler on Mac. All you have to do is change the region of the computer as well as its language and that of Siri to activate Apple Intelligence. The two platforms are managed differently.
Let’s remember that the Apple Intelligence beta is currently officially open in the United States. In the rest of the world, it is apparently quite easy to activate it on iPhone and iPad by changing a few settings (region, language). Only EU countries and China will be deprived of Apple Intelligence at first, which is why the locks are more advanced.
