If some of Apple's ads lately had been tone-deaf duds, the company's decision to run ads in the iOS Wallet offers a more intimate warning about its priorities.
"I did not pay over $1000 for an iPhone to get advertised at," complains one Reddit user (u/captain42d). Another recent post, already with dozens of replies, wants to know how to turn off Apple Pay ads. …The addition of the new control toggle in iOS 26 suggests that Apple plans to push more marketing messages and promotions through the Wallet app in the future — something many iPhone users won't appreciate.
The idea seems to be that Apple protects your privacy from others but you've given it up to Apple. Sliding ads into your wallet is a pretty stark example of what's downstream of that. Apple Privacy may be an appealing consumer product compared to the overt rapacity of its competitors, but it isn't privacy per se. Any door it has into your life can be opened for or forced by others, as Apple istelf warned when the UK required it to stop providing encrypted messaging there.
Previously:
• The coming EU privacy regulation will end up remaking the world's web
• Peak indifference: privacy as a public health issue
• Radical Librarianship: how ninja librarians are ensuring patrons' electronic privacy
