Getting people to come to your next party or celebration could be made a little easier because now there’s an app for that.
Apple has made a surprise announcement this week, and while it’s not surprise cake (because surprise cake is always a good thing), it could still be something that involves cake, depending on your circumstances.
If you’re throwing a party or celebration with a desire to have cake at said event, Apple’s announcement would definitely cover it, because largely out of the blue, Apple has prepped an app to help you invite friends and family to events.
Called “Invites”, it’s an app focused on folks who pay for Apple’s iCloud+ service, providing an easy-to-use invite maker that takes advantage of the photos found on an iPhone or iPad, mapping data from Apple Maps, and then links it all together using the iCloud online service.
Making an event requires the iCloud+ service, but simply viewing one and saying you’re coming doesn’t, working on iPhone, Android, and Windows and Mac, thanks to the system using the iCloud website to let people decide whether they’ll be there or not.
“With Apple Invites, an event comes to life from the moment the invitation is created, and users can share lasting memories even after they get together,” said Brent Chiu-Watson, Senior Director of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apps and iCloud at Apple.
“Apple Invites brings together capabilities our users already know and love across iPhone, iCloud, and Apple Music, making it easy to plan special events,” he said.
The app also makes use of Apple Intelligence to a degree, supporting Apple’s Image Playground for making AI-based images if you want that, while the writing tools rolled out with iOS 18’s AI features are also supported, helping to make your event info writing be a little more creative, if need be.
While the addition of an events invitation app to the iCloud+ service is definitely one we didn’t see coming, we’d love it if Apple would perhaps consider other additions, such as access to its other apps like Final Cut Pro for iPad or Logic Pro, or even just a little more storage overall. These days, 2TB hardly cuts it for storing all those photos and videos, and the 2TB max of the $50 monthly Apple iCloud+ Premier account really should be something more like 4 or 6 terabytes.
