I don’t see the big deal. I also don’t recall seeing the ads either though.
It's because it's not just an entry down on their occasional list of special offers under the Apple Card, they put it at the top of the Wallet app's main screen, above all the cards, and they sent a push notification for it. Previously all the push notifications from Wallet have been "you spent $X at place Y on card Z", or, early on, "card Z is now ready for use", and once a month something like "your Apple Card balance of $X will be paid tomorrow". All business - and every one of those notifications was worth looking at, was something you
should look at.
Now they've thrown an ad into the mix. Saying, "okay, actually, not every push notification from Wallet is worth looking at, because now they may include ads". It's not that was a push notification, and a dismissible banner ad, it was that they intruded into a space that was previously "business only". You're used to getting in your car and turning it on and using the controls and readouts to drive somewhere - it's a utility to you, "all business" - you bought it or leased it (or stole it or whatever), and you expect it to provide you the intended service and nothing else. Now what if you got in your car, and started it, and the car itself started playing a McDonalds ad on the dashboard before you could drive anywhere - you'd be pretty unhappy, because that wasn't part of the original deal.
If the F1 ad is a one-time thing, it's not
that bad (Apple is excited to let everyone know about their foray into a new market, the cinema). If it becomes a regular thing, then yes, it is a "big deal".
When they did the "free U2 album on everyone's device" thing, they genuinely thought they were doing something that everybody would enjoy. They found out the hard way that many people disliked U2, or didn't want the space used up, or didn't want the bandwidth used to download the album, or didn't want to have to figure out how to delete it. I think that surprised them. They got the message, and didn't do anything like that again.
The equivalent for this would have been if they gave everyone a free ticket to the movie - I suspect some would object to even that. But this wasn't a free thing, it was taking advantage of a service people have come to trust (Apple Wallet), to try to
sell something to them. Again, if it's a one-time thing, call it a fluke and get over it. But if it happens again, I'm going to be pretty annoyed (and I suspect a whole bunch of other people will be as well).
