Apple debuts an app for party invitations as it looks at services for recurring revenue

Planning a watch party for the big game? Apple Invites, the new app for iPhone, can help you throw a great one! It’s available from the App Store and on the web now! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/JJausS2mjO

— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) February 4, 2025

While users will not need an iPhone to RSVP to events, they need an iCloud subscription to create and share custom invitations.

With Invites, Apple is competing with Partiful, a startup founded in 2020 that allows users to make and send event invites. However, Apple Invites demonstrates the strength of the iPhone ecosystem and the company’s business model. Partiful called Apple’s app a copy in a social media post after Invites hit the App Store.

How does the Apple Invites work?

The app enables users to send highly customisable party invites. (Express Photo)

Creating an invite is simple. Choose a background, which can be an image from your photo library or a collection of event-themed backgrounds from the app’s gallery. Apple Intelligence can also come in handy for making the invites, with the built-in Image Playground generator creating images from simple prompts to match your vision for the invite. Meanwhile, Apple Intelligence’s Writing Tools can be used to generate the copy.

Perhaps what makes Invites different from competing apps is its integration with other Apple apps. The app is compatible with Apple Maps and Apple Weather, allowing invitees to access an event’s address and view the weather forecast for the event. The Invites app also lets users create a dedicated Shared Album, where other Apple users can upload photos and videos associated with the event, as well as a shared Apple Music playlist to curate a collaborative event soundtrack.

Sharing the invite with others is easy: Invites users can share the invite via a link and manage the preview of what others see. Guests can RSVP using the iPhone app or the web, even if they don’t have an Apple account or subscription.

Apple doubling down on services

Invites is another example of how Apple is boosting its services lineup and cashing in on subscriptions. Apple’s services strategy is clearly aimed at serving its massive user base of 2.35 billion active devices. Apple’s Services division has become the company’s second-largest business, behind the iPhone, bringing in $26.3 billion in revenue for the quarter ending December 28, up 14 per cent year-over-year.

Services generated nearly $100 billion in revenue over the past year. Apple recently said it has more than 1 billion subscriptions across its services, including through third-party apps in the App Store.

An iCloud+ subscription is Apple’s premium cloud service that includes better online storage and a suite of additional features. It starts at Rs 75 per month for 50GB of storage. This subscription service offers a VPN-style relay service for private browsing, custom email domains for iCloud, and HomeKit Secure Video storage. Apple does not disclose how many iCloud+ subscribers it has.