This is really a stretch.
It’s a whole different deal on a digital device that can steal your attention when you don’t want it to.
There is a reason Apple are adding the opt-out toggle in iOS26, and why we have granular notifications settings.
These are not things users should be subjected to if they don't want to be.
I can't believe this is controversial to say.
To @surferfb's point earlier.
This is the sort of thing we would ROAST Samsung or Microsoft about.
Because Apple is doing it doesn't suddenly make it "ok".
And to Gruber's point in his latest article, I actually think it does significant harm.
I’m 99.9 percent certain this F1 ad was just blasted out to zillions of Wallet users indiscriminately, but some number of users who got it — especially people who know they’re in the demographic for the movie — surely think they got the ad because Wallet is tracking their interests and activities. Like, what if you recently bought tickets to see another summer blockbuster movie? Using Apple Wallet? And then you got this ad? It’d be completely sensible to be spooked by that, and conclude that Apple Wallet is tracking you.
and
Sending this ad is completely destructive to all the hard work other teams at Apple have done to make Apple Wallet actually private — and, more importantly, to get users to believe that it’s private. That Apple can be trusted in ways that other “big tech” companies cannot. The perception of privacy is just as important as the technical details that make something actually private.