Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch Tuesday:

Apple customers aren’t thrilled they’re getting an ad from the Apple Wallet app promoting the tech giant’s original film “F1 the Movie.” Across socialmedia, iPhone owners are complaining that their Wallet app sent out a push notification offering a $10 discount at Fandango for anyone buying two or more tickets to the film.

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:

Apple today sent out an ad to some iPhone users in the form of a Wallet app push notification, and not everyone is happy about it.

That’s an understatement, to say the very least. See if you can find a single comment from anyone who was happy about receiving this push notification ad. Seriously, let me know if you find one statement in support of this.

Casey Liss, succinct as ever:

🤮

The ad itself, from Apple, read:

Apple Pay
$10 off at Fandango

Save on 2+ tickets to F1® The Movie with APPLEPAYTEN. Ends 6/29. While supplies last. Terms apply.

In addition to the justified outrage over receiving any ad from a system-level component like Wallet in the first place, this particular ad sucks in multiple ways. Why did Apple put a “®” after “F1” in the movie title? Why not put a “®” next to “Apple Pay” and “Fandango” too? What supplies are running out on this promotion? Why add that “terms apply”? This is just a shit notification from top to bottom, putting aside whether any such notification should have been sent in the first place.

iOS 26 adds new settings inside the Wallet app to allow fine-grained control over notifications, including the ability to turn off notifications for “Offers & Promotions” (Wallet app → (···) → Settings). That’s good. But (a) iOS 26 is months away from being released to the general public — there exists no way to opt out of such notifications now; and (b) at least for me, I was by default opted in to this setting on my iOS 26 devices.

This was such a boneheaded marketing decision on Apple’s part. They cost themselves way more in goodwill and trust than they possibly could have earned in additional F1 The Movie — wait, sorry, my bad, F1® The Movie — box office ticket sales. It’s like Apple got paid to exemplify Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification” theory. Apple Wallet doesn’t present itself as a marketing vehicle. It presents itself as a privacy-protecting system service.