Apple faces backlash for promoting F1 movie via Wallet app notification

iPhone users have taken to the internet to voice their anger over an unsolicited ad for Apple's upcoming F1 movie. The promotion popped up as a push notification directly from a place some may consider off-limits for marketing: the Wallet app. The notification offered a $10 discount on two tickets when bought through Fandango using Apple Pay.

Apple has poured a lot of money into this film, so it is no wonder Apple is marketing it so aggressively. The movie, which stars Brad Pitt, reportedly cost more than $200 million to produce and was filmed using some innovative techniques. Apple created custom cameras using parts from the iPhone 15 Pro to capture in-car footage and even embedded its fictional APXGP team into actual F1 race weekends. The company also pushed a unique "haptic trailer" and featured the movie at WWDC. The marketing has been everywhere.

The main complaint from users online is that a device that costs "over $1000" should not serve ads in its core, first-party applications. For those users, the discount did not matter; the problem was the principle of getting ads in a utility app on a premium phone. People mostly rely on Wallet for financial transactions and passes, not for movie coupons.

This kind of push notification also seems to fly in the face of Apple's own developer guidelines, which state that push notifications should not be used for direct marketing unless users have explicitly opted in.

Currently, there is no simple way to opt out. That might be changing, however. A new toggle to disable promotions was spotted in the Wallet app in a beta for iOS 26, with TechCrunch suggesting that Apple plans to push more marketing messages in the future.