[adrr]

How so? It just sends a link either in a message or email. Acceptance is done via a web page. How do online invitations ensure vendor lock in? What will prevent me from using another online invite system in the future? I’ve used a bunch in past like evite, paperless post and the cost to switch is nothing.

[onion2k]

Two of the features of Invites are sharing photos and sharing music. These are both locked down to users of Apple services (Photos and Music). So you can invite anyone, but those people won't be able to fully participate in your event.

There's nothing really wrong with Invites if you're happy to only have photos from people with iPhones or to let the music be exclusively chosen by Apple users, but you can't pretend it's a fair and equal system.

[treesknees]

Depends on how you define locked down. Apple Music has been available on the Google Play store for years [1] and also supports listening in a web browser on any operating system [2]. I do agree Photos could use some cross-platform improvements.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...

[2] https://support.apple.com/guide/music-web/welcome/web

[ejoso]

It is a degraded experience. Not as smooth as being on iOS. It’s a common playbook used by Apple (as well as MS and others) in an attempt to get and retain users.

[mjamil]

Why would the stewards of a walled garden want other gardens (walled or otherwise) be as good as theirs? What moral or economic imperative exists for such a belief?

Why is that bad?

[TeMPOraL]

> Why would the stewards of a walled garden want other gardens (walled or otherwise) be as good as theirs? What moral (...) imperative exists for such a belief?

Not being an asshole? It's normal instinct unless one's brain has been thoroughly eaten by competitiveness.

> Why is that bad?

Because in this, Apple is attacking the commons. They're trying to provide an alternative to normal invite system - one that's been established and battle-tested over decades, one that works okay-ish across any device, real or virtual, on any platform, and one that people know how to use. An alternative that gives some bells and whistles exclusively to the Apple users, and perhaps even is more ergonomic in practice. An alternative that overlaps with the commons just enough to perhaps get the significant chunk of Apple-first userbase to switch over, but purposefully doesn't overlap enough to work well for non-Apple users (as well as professional users).

Take commons, drive a wedge down the side, use it as lever for your massive userbase to push everyone else off it. Screw everyone else. Hell, even screw your own users too for having Android users (or Windows or Linux desktop users!) among family and friends. The next generation of users should remember that thou shalt only befriend and marry people from within your corporate community.

[krger]

>They're trying to provide an alternative to normal invite system - one that's been established and battle-tested over decades, one that works okay-ish across any device, real or virtual, on any platform, and one that people know how to use.

And if the people who try Invites discover that it isn't, in fact, superior to this "normal invite system"—whatever you believe it to be—that you claim is "established and battle-tested," they won't continue using it and will go back to what they were doing before.

>An alternative that gives some bells and whistles exclusively to the Apple users, and perhaps even is more ergonomic in practice.

Do you believe that all vendors should be forbidden from shipping any new application or feature that doesn't offer full interoperability and feature parity with everybody else or is that a limitation you believe should be applied only to Apple?