On June 24, 2025, some iPhone users in the United States received a promotional alert through Apple Wallet for F1: The Movie. Reports said the offer was for $10 off two Fandango tickets with the code APPLEPAYTEN. The campaign drew criticism because a Wallet alert—a channel many people associate with payment cards, tickets and other practical information—was used to advertise a film.
What the Wallet promotion offered
Coverage of the June 2025 campaign described an offer for $10 off two movie tickets purchased through Fandango, using the reported code APPLEPAYTEN. Users said tapping the alert opened an offer in Wallet. The promotion was reported in the United States; public accounts do not establish its full eligibility rules, expiration terms or audience size. Treat the code as historical, not as a verified current discount. (Cybernews; India Today; Phone Scoop)
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The promotion was for F1: The Movie, a film involving Apple Studios, while Fandango was the ticketing destination. Reports said recipients did not need to have the Fandango app installed. The available accounts do not settle whether the discount required Apple Pay at checkout or how the offer was technically delivered.
Why an advertisement in Wallet bothered users
Wallet is commonly used for payment cards, boarding passes, event tickets, identification, loyalty cards and coupons. Apple’s own descriptions of Wallet and its pass tools include credentials as well as offers and rewards. But users may expect a notification tied to a stored pass to tell them about that pass—not to promote a studio release.
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That difference helps explain the reaction. A gate-change notice or ticket update is directly useful to someone holding the relevant pass. A general movie promotion is a different kind of message, even if it offers a discount. Reports quoted users who said they had not knowingly opted into movie marketing through Wallet. The concern was not only the ad itself, but whether a broad permission for useful Wallet alerts should also count as consent to promotional messages.
There is a practical trade-off: if a user responds by disabling every Wallet notification, they may also lose useful pass-related alerts. A separate control for promotions would give people more choice than an all-or-nothing setting.
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- Official Blu-ray release of F1: The Movie (2025), capturing the high-speed intensity and emotional drama of professional Formula One racing.
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What Apple’s notification guidance says—and what it does not prove
Apple’s App Review Guidelines say push notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing unless customers have explicitly opted in, and that apps must provide a way to opt out. Apple’s notification design guidance likewise calls for explicit agreement to marketing notifications and a clear way to manage that choice. (App Review Guidelines; Managing Notifications)
Those principles make the Wallet campaign a fair subject for scrutiny, but the public information does not establish a definitive policy violation. The App Review Guidelines chiefly govern apps submitted by developers, while this promotion appeared in Apple’s own Wallet ecosystem. Apple also documents that Wallet passes can carry offers and be updated through notifications. The available reporting does not show what consent recipients had previously given, which pass or offer mechanism was used, or how Apple classified the alert.
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So the most defensible conclusion is narrower: the campaign appeared difficult to reconcile with Apple’s stated preference for explicit consent to marketing notifications, but the evidence does not prove that Apple breached a specific rule in this instance.
Wallet notification is not one single technical category
“Apple push notification” can describe several different experiences, and the public accounts do not identify the exact delivery method used for the F1 promotion. The relevant distinctions are:
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- Brad Pitt stars in this racing action drama as a Formula One driver who comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.
- iOS notification permission: the system-level permission governing an app’s ability to alert a user.
- Wallet notifications: alerts associated with Wallet functionality, which can include pass updates.
- Pass-related messages: updates or offers associated with a particular ticket, coupon, loyalty card or other Wallet pass.
- Conventional app push: a message sent by an installed app, such as a ticketing app.
Apple’s developer materials describe Wallet passes as capable of carrying offers and rewards, and of receiving updates through push notifications. That makes a Wallet-based promotion technically plausible without establishing whether this particular alert was a pass update, an Apple-controlled Wallet message or another mechanism. (Wallet: Get started; Wallet loyalty passes)
The distinction matters for consent: allowing notifications that keep a ticket current is not automatically the same thing as explicitly agreeing to general advertising. The unresolved questions are who issued or administered the offer, what consent was obtained, and whether users could turn off promotional alerts without losing other Wallet notices.
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Apple Pay branding and the commercial chain
The code’s Apple Pay wording and the alert’s appearance in Wallet linked the promotion to Apple’s payment ecosystem in users’ minds. That does not, by itself, establish that Apple sold the tickets or that Apple Pay was mandatory for redemption. Fandango was identified as the ticketing destination, while Apple provided the promotional surface. Apple’s marketing guidance says Apple Pay promotions can include incentives such as discounts, but that general guidance does not verify the exact terms of this Fandango offer. (Apple Pay marketing guidance)
What was reported about controls in iOS 26 beta
Coverage in June 2025 reported that an iOS 26 beta included a separate Wallet “Offers & Promotions” control, potentially allowing users to manage promotional alerts separately from other Wallet notifications. That was a report about beta software at the time—not confirmation of the final release interface or the setting’s availability in later versions. The available reporting does not establish a current menu path, regional availability or whether the control remained in subsequent releases. (India Today; Phone Scoop)
At the time of the campaign, reporting described turning off Wallet notifications entirely as a broad workaround. Because that can also affect useful alerts, do not assume it is the best current fix; check the controls available in the iOS version on the device rather than relying on a beta-era menu path.
Why the incident mattered beyond one movie
Apple’s hardware, operating system, payment tools, Wallet surface and entertainment business give the company several ways to reach customers. Using Wallet to promote a film may be commercially understandable, but it also tests user expectations about what a built-in utility app is for. If people cannot readily distinguish transaction or pass updates from marketing—or manage them separately—the result can be less trust in the alerts they actually want.
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