Apple has launched a new iPhone app to help users create and send attractive invites to events and to manage the RSVP list.
The new Invites app, which is a standalone free app designed to exist outside of the Calendar app and geared towards the personal rather than the professional environment. This weekend, for example, it might be a Super Bowl watch party.
Invites integrates multiple stock Apple apps within the ecosystem – including Contacts, Photos, Weather, Maps, Music, and others.
As well as giving you an opportunity to set up invites to events you’re hosting, the app also keeps you up to speed on Apple Invites you’ve RSVP’d to.
Here’s how it all comes together.
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How to create Apple Invites
Firstly, you’ll need a subscription to Apple’s iCloud+ platform, which is anything beyond the free 5GB of storage everyone gets.
The app is designed to enable users to quickly create attractive invites to events of all types – from a Sunday morning beach clean up, to a night painting the town red.
You’ll choose a background using templates, your photo albums or, usefully, the new Image Playground Apple Intelligence tool that arrived in iOS 18.2 for compatible iPhone models.
If you have already chosen a title, Image Playground will conjure something based on that. My Super Bowl Watch Party image was a little too literal in its interpretation.
Once you create the title, you’ll need to add a a date and time (which integrates the expected weather), add a text description, offer directions to the location, create a shared album where you and others can post photos, and even offer a shared Apple Music playlist which invitees can contribute to.
Overall, this can take less than five minutes to set up.
Once you’re done tinkering with the invite, you’ll see a preview for the Invite you’ve created, and how people you ask along will see it. It features all of the vital details including one-touch Yes, No, Maybe RSVP options.
Once the event is created you can add it to your own Calendar app. You can also send notes to update your guests in the buildup to the event.
How to send an Apple Invite
From here you’ll be presented with options for sharing. You can create a public link that can be shared via Messages, Mail or through any other app of your choosing. Here there’s the safeguard of approving the guests who accept.
You can also choose to invite individuals from your Contacts list. Gradually, a guest list will appear below as users begin to RSVP. You can also set up notifications about events you’re attending and hosting.
