The Game-Changing Apple App That Can Finally Get Your Vacation Out Of The Group Chat

Anyone who has ever volunteered or gotten stuck with wrangling a group chat into planning a trip knows that it's borderline impossible. Coordinating dinner plans or getting everyone to commit to happy hour already entails a minor miracle, what more organizing an actual group trip — say, exploring the tropical beaches in Costa Rica or heading to Cape Winelands for an unforgettable girls getaway? It all sounds dreamy in theory, until the idea dies a slow death in unread messages. Thankfully, Apple launched the Invites app, and it might save your trip before it even starts. It's free, easy to use, and get this: even Android people can use it.

While AI can technically build you an entire trip itinerary, Invites takes it several steps further. Instead of scattered messages that eventually get buried with memes, everything's collated in one place: dates, times, locations, a full itinerary — all synced with everyone's calendar. This way, no one can feign ignorance and pretend they didn't know the flight leaves at 6 a.m. It even pulls weather updates into the event so everyone knows whether to pack a poncho or a bikini. Of course, there's a shared album for trip pics, and yes, there's a playlist, too — because what is a group trip without a proper soundtrack?

"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, Apple's senior director of Worldwide Product Marketing for Apps and iCloud, in a statement. "Apple Invites brings together capabilities our users already know and love across iPhone, iCloud, and Apple Music, making it easy to plan special events." In short, the days of planning a trip and it getting nowhere are numbered.

Planning a trip for a solo adventure usually already entails color-coded spreadsheets and multiple tabs at once. Add friends to the equation, and suddenly you're managing six different people's wildly different schedules, indecision, and snack preferences. Apple Invites tones down the madness by letting one person (in this case, you) take the reins. All you have to do is fire up the app, create a new event, plug in the date and location, and dump all the trip info in the description box. There's no need for back-and-forth about the weather and directions — the app conveniently adds a map and forecast right below. And if you're feeling extra, you can decorate the invite with a custom cover photo and background.

Once everything is up to snuff, you can preview it to make sure it's not a disaster, then drop it into the group chat. You can share a public link or choose to manually approve RSVPs if you're trying to keep things exclusive (or just don't want that one flaky friend showing up). For tighter control, you can extend invites to select people instead of sending the event to the entire group. From invite creation to adding oomph and pizzazz, planning a group trip using the app is simple, straightforward, and doesn't leave much room for confusion. And as a bonus, guests don't need an Apple device or an iCloud account to respond. Only the host (again, you) just needs to have an active iCloud subscription to get the ball rolling.

What's missing, though, is a finance feature, which is a bummer when you're trying to plan an affordable friend trip and your posse's incomes vary wildly. But it's Apple we're talking about here — an option to make split payments is probably already in the pipeline.