Apple Messages for Business now lets approved brands send an invitation to iPhone customers, who can accept it to start a chat with a verified sender.
Businesses can now invite iPhone customers to chat in the Messages app, instead of waiting for customers to find them. The feature is called Apple Business Invites. It is in a private beta run by Twilio, a company that provides messaging tools to businesses, and it is open only to approved brands.
Apple Messages for Business, or AMB, shows up as a verified sender in the regular Messages app. Customers can pay, book or get help without leaving it. Until now, the customer had to start the conversation. That keeps spam out, but it makes it hard for a brand to get found.
An invitation is a short Apple template sent to a customer's phone number. It asks the customer to connect. If the customer accepts, that counts as opt-in, meaning the customer has agreed to hear from the brand.
After a customer accepts, the brand can send service messages for up to a year after the customer's last interaction. Examples include order updates, account alerts and support replies. The article also lists fraud alerts, flight changes and order tracking as uses for verified alerts.
Apple also expects every brand to let customers reply, offer a path to a human agent inside the chat, and support more than a single task.
Some vendors sell "blue bubble" iMessage services that let a business text customers first. The article says there is no official way to do this. Those services rely on workarounds that break Apple's terms of service, and Apple can shut them down at any time. A business that builds on them risks losing every conversation it has there.
For customers, the pitch is trust. A message from a verified sender with a brand's name and logo is easier to believe than a text from an unknown number.
The post does not say how many brands are in the beta, what it costs, or when it will open more widely. Joining the beta is only the first step. Apple approves invitations separately for each brand, and that approval is described as selective.
Approved invitations are the sanctioned way to reach iPhone customers first, and marketing texts still need a separate yes from each customer.
A browser that Android Authority calls the best on Android is not in the Play Store, but it can still be installed with a few extra steps.
Read more: A top Android browser is not in the Play Store, but you can still install itA Tom's Guide poll found only 5 of 200 readers shop for AI in earbuds and headphones. Sound quality won easily, so check AI claims before you pay extra.
Read more: Few shoppers want AI in headphones, but brands keep adding itA leaker says the iPhone 20 could fold the Action Button into Camera Control, leaving one button for both jobs. It is an early, unverified rumor.
Read more: Next year's iPhone may merge its two extra buttons into one
