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I’m a longtime iPhone user who is deeply entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem. I wear an Apple Watch religiously to track my health and fitness, and I use a MacBook for work and leisure. AirPods and iPad? Check and check.
I’m also dying to see Brad Pitt’s F1 movie that Apple made. I was especially psyched after WWDC 2025. Apple used WWDC to promote F1 in brilliant ways. First was the intro gag, and then the unique iPhone-only haptic trailer.
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More importantly, we learned that Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro camera was developed for the F1 movie, as the Formula 1 races in the clip are actual races recorded with iPhone-grade cameras.
At that point I would have watched F1 even if it were a bad movie. Luckily, everyone who saw it praised the film, suggesting Apple had a massive summer blockbuster on its hands, which is terrific news for the future of Apple TV+ in Hollywood.
But then someone at Apple decided to ruin all the momentum F1 had and push an advertisement in the Wallet app to thousands of iPhone users. It was even worse than Apple auto-downloading that U2 album on millions of iPhones all those years ago.
I use the Wallet app all the time. It’s how I’ve been paying for most things for years. Apple secures that experience, and I’m not worried about my credit cards being stolen. I also use the app for passes, from planes to public transportation. It’s one of the best features of the iPhone (and Apple Watch).
Given that I’m a longtime user and I’ve been following Apple products for years, I know the Wallet app is secure and private. I know that Apple isn’t collecting user data to then blast us with ads and recommendations based on our purchases.
Mastodon user Claude Zeins making fun of Apple's F1 Wallet app ad.
But, as John Gruber rightly points out, it’s likely that some iPhone users thought Apple might have tracked their spending habits to hit them with that F1 ad in the Wallet app. I wouldn’t blame them. After all, we know that Google, Facebook, Instagram, and plenty of other apps track virtually everything we do online.
I also wouldn’t blame any iPhone users who might think the Wallet app is not secure as a result. But it is — Apple is not spying on us.
With that said, I can’t imagine why a company that made privacy and security a tentpole of its products, especially the iPhone, would decide to betray that trust by placing a commercial in a place nobody wants to see ads.
Apple also did it without obtaining consent from users, which is all the more annoying. After all, Apple dealt a huge blow to companies like Facebook, who want to track us everywhere, by forcing them to ask for permission for tracking on iPhone.
Apple could have easily pushed the ad in a different app. But it would have been just as bad. I’m already paying premium prices for Apple products that should come free of ads.
Interestingly, I never got the ad, but maybe that’s because I’m an European iPhone owner.
I wanted to watch F1 as soon as it came out in theaters over here, which was Wednesday. But there have to be consequences for some of Apple’s decisions. I am an Apple fan and customer, but I won’t tolerate just anything. If ads become the norm in the Wallet app, I will switch back to using a physical card and store my passes elsewhere.
For now, I won’t pay to see F1 in theaters no matter how much I want to watch the movie or how good it sounds. Instead, I’ll just wait for it to drop on Apple TV+, while also cheering for the Apple teams who make movies like F1 happen and who ensure that I can take apps like Wallet for granted, and not worry about privacy and security.
I’ll also say I’m pretty sure F1 doesn’t need Wallet ads to become a box office hit this weekend.
What’s also clear here is that Apple has to think outside the box when it comes to its ad strategy. As The Verge observed, Apple keeps pulling ads after it releases them. It can’t pull the F1 Wallet ad, but I’m sure it would do so if it were possible.
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