After a few weeks of rumors and leaks, Apple has finally revealed its new Invites feature. Apple Invites is a standalone iPhone app that also works on the web through iCloud.com. According to the company, Apple Invites helps users plan events. It looks similar to the Fantastical app feature, which lets you plan meetings with several people and let them choose the best date and hour for most.
With this release, the iCloud+ subscription has even more to offer, as only subscribers can create an event. Despite more storage, iCloud Private Relay, Hide my Email, and HomeKit Secure Video, users can now take advantage of Apple Invites.
This feature is available for every iCloud+ user, which goes from the 50GB tier to 12TB (as part of a standalone subscription). Apple One subscribers can also enjoy this feature. Here’s how the company describes Apple Invites:
“Create online party invitations – for birthdays, graduations, baby showers & more. Track RSVPs, create shared albums, and send instantly by email or text.”
Even though creating invites is exclusive to iCloud+ subscribers, other users don’t need an Apple device or Apple account to engage with an invitation, which means they can download the app (or use the web app), review invitations, collaborate on events, and more.
It’s unclear why Apple released this feature now, but it’s nice to see it continue adding value to its subscriptions. 9to5Mac first rumored this function almost a month ago when Filipe Espósito found references to it on iOS 18.2 and iOS 18.3 beta codes.
“Code suggests that the Invites app will integrate with iCloud and will even have a web version on iCloud.com. The new app also integrates with a new iOS 18 daemon called GroupKit, which manages database models for groups of people. This daemon has been present since the first release of iOS 18.0 and hasn’t been used by any Apple apps so far.”
That said, with this new GroupKit API, it’s possible that Apple will soon release it to developers so they can implement this feature in their own apps.
You can find the Apple Invites app in the App Store or on the iCloud website. So far, no iPad version is available.
