Apple wants its customers to know that it has poured a considerable sum of money into the making of F1, a Formula 1 racing movie starring Brad Pitt. Consistent with this, many people, including some staff members, saw an odd Apple Wallet notification this morning that acts as both a promotional opportunity for the movie and an advertisement.
By using a promotional code that reads, ‘Save on 2+ tickets to F1 The Movie with APPLEPAYTEN. Ends 6/29. While supplies last. Terms apply,’ the notification encourages customers to take advantage of discounts on movie tickets via Fandango. Apple seems to be trying to increase the film’s opening weekend by luring customers with this offer.
Many people have regarded this notice as a nuisance, as TechCrunch and 9to5Mac have already pointed out. People are drawing parallels to Apple’s notorious U2 event in 2014 when the company automatically added the band’s then-newest album to over 500 million iTunes accounts without a way to remove it, a promotional error costing Apple up to $100 million. Apple released a tool shortly thereafter, enabling customers to remove the album from their collections. Apple sent out unsolicited push notifications more recently to support Carpool Karaoke, among the first successes of Apple TV Plus.
Generally speaking, Apple consumers despise getting commercials and marketing campaigns dispatched to their devices without their consent. Historically, they have opposed advertisements for Apple’s services discovered in their iOS Settings, for instance. People keep expressing their disappointment with the U2 album automatically added to their iTunes music library even ten years later.
Independent of your thoughts on notifications that cross the line between a worthwhile offer and an advertisement or the quality of the film, this strategy looks rather desperate. Apple’s strong point in 2025 has not been advertising. Apple has been asked for more details on this alert; we will amend this post should we get one.
