Apple Invites

It's always nice to see some first-party apps from Apple[0], but historically the "iPhone-only social networking" hasn't been very successful — iTunes Ping or Game Center haven't been a huge hit, while group messaging in iMessage has only gained some traction within the US and virtually non-existent almost everywhere else.

---

[0] One can even say "first first-party party app" in this case :)

In this case they don't need an Iphone to RSVP though. Seems like a good implementation. The challenge is for the organizer not the folks rsvping.

Fortunately you don't need everyone to be on iOS to reply. So you can send your Android using friends invited and they'll just get a weblink.

If you have watched the launch video, and if there was one to begin with, did they say [First Time Ever in an iCloud+ Account]™?

It still requires people to read a text message.

It may as well be delivered via carrier pigeon outside the US.

I'm unclear what your comment has to do with this app, which isn't a social network, and which communicates just fine with other phones.

So that's a green bubble situation. You get a subpar experience, your iPhone friends get a subpar experience from including you, and eventually they'll yell at you "well just get an iPhone already!"

Will it show them as green or blue though? :)

Genuine question, is SMS text delivery unreliable where in certain countries?

Unfortunately you need an iPhone to create the invite, or contribute anything else than a reply. They have to know their uncoolness is tolerated but not welcomed in the walled garden.

It's unneeded because phones have affordable/free access to the Internet these days, SMS is a relic of the 20th century.

Mission Accomplished. iOS is a significantly large enough market that it will have some success for those looking to replace FB/evite.

You can say the same thing about FB/Whatsapp or any other social network - you have to be in-network to get the invite even.

Looking forward to testing this out for some events.

“iPhone-only social networking” has been very successful (amongst my US-based peer group, at least), once you include iMessage - that’s the point. I don’t know much about apple invites, but if it integrates well into iMessaging then this is a very strong play.

In the US yeah it is. In the rest of the world, not so much.

And the alternative on iOS is...? What exactly?

RCS is a flaming trash dump of failure.

Apple may not be exactly jumping in joy about it but, even if it's mostly only useful for people in the US, they probably don't see that as a showstopper either.

I don't really see that at all. I have a circle of friends, some of whom have iPhones and some not (to say nothing of companies/doctors sending me reminders and the like), and the non-iPhones seem to work just fine. I sure don't care what color their text bubble is.

Most social networks don't have a $5-600 buy-in cost though.

If the plethora of iCalendar email attachments I've seen over the years (despite not owning any Apple devices or using their software) is any indication, I'm not sure that only being on Apple devices will be a significant barrier to people trying to coordinate stuff with this.

The US market is probably big enough to make the service a success. Sometimes you don't need to be the biggest to be good enough.

Other messaging platforms; the one most commonly cited seems to be WhatsApp.

iCalendar files predate Mac OS X, and are an ietf standard

I sure wish they did. It would reduce the number of bots to nearly zero.

I just spent $70 to send out birthday party invites to 40 parents on Evite. The free version sends an invite with ads, links to Amazon, and other tacky stuff. As an iPhone user with two kids switching to iCloud+ is cheaper than the alternatives. And I think many other parents will agree.

Though iMessage largely works in part because it's pretty much transparent if you send a text message.

I have a US number and live in Switzerland. At least for me, I only receive SMS messages whenever I visit the US -- the rest of the time they're just dropped and I'll never see them.

(Doesn't really bother me, my friends and I all use WhatsApp/etc. anyway.)

n=1 though, maybe this is some quirk of my phone provider.

I’m not sure I understand the “though” in this message but yeah, definitely the user interface of this social network is messaging.

...Why?

The competition I see for this is partiful (https://partiful.com/), which is free, handles invites for folks without accounts (I don't have one, I am invited to parties via text message), and is clearly the inspiration/competition apples for this app given the visual similarities.

Just the way I wrote the reply. It's unnecessary. Yes, you send a text and it's iMessage or not iMessage. Doesn't matter. There are some nuances if you're on your Mac with your phone off/on an international SIM (which I admit to not totally understanding).

Somehow they're unreliable just in the US. I had someone think I was mad at them because when I texted them to hang out it never made it. Had to remember to switch messaging apps.

I think they were on a cheap prepaid plan though.

Free how? Who pays? Just benevolence?

The cheapest iCloud+ plan is $0.99/mo., which a lot of people are already on just for backup of photos and videos.

Simple: I’ve never heard of it until this thread. I get probably 20 birthday party invites a year from Silicon Valley-type families, and they are all using Evite or Paperless Post. There was a time when I would have looked for alternatives or rolled my own solution, but living busy toddler life means I pick my battles and grumble about it on Hacker News :)

I think they both used to be cheaper, but now they’re focused on profits. Same as Partiful will do eventually.

On iOS? Don't make me laugh. Apple will die before they implement custom configurable messaging providers in iOS.

Amusingly, I've never heard of either of those. Partiful is much more oriented towards less "professional" parties, it's replacing what was the facebook event segment of a lot of my social circle event organizing.

I'd be pretty peeved to spend any money on such a service, and many of my friends simply couldn't.

SMS text delivery has always been sporadically unreliable for me. The cases where the messages are delayed by several minutes or hours are almost as problematic as the cases where they never arrive at all.

It doesn't seem to be specific to any country, though some are worse than others. Definitely seems to be a "best effort" service everywhere.

You can create an invite online. No Apple hardware needed.

I'm talking about the phone. You can't access this app without an iPhone.

iMessage/SMS is just one of the many sending options in the share sheet. WhatsApp or whatever your country uses will be there too.

Your argument is the same as “Walmart has a $25,000 entry ticket because you can’t access Walmart without a car.”

There are lots of ways to buy things from walmart without $25,000.

But to consider this more realistically: yes, one of the reasons I don't shop at walmart is because I don't own a car, and the closes Walmart to me is over 2 hours away on public transit, whereas the closest target is 15 minutes away, and amazon doesn't require me to leave my house.

Walmart is fine with that because me not shopping there doesn't make the store less attractive to others, but with social media it does. Me not using the iphone-only social media because it is behind a $500 or $1000 paywall makes it less useful for other people, especially when there are free alternatives around.