Apple starts pushing iPhone monthly payment ads via the Wallet app

Apple Card Wallet app on iOS (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

Apple is advertising its monthly iPhone installment plan.
The ad appears in the Wallet app.
Buyers can pick up an iPhone on Apple Card and pay monthly, interest-free.

We already know that Apple planned to offer an interest-free financing option for buyers who wanted to pay for iPhones monthly. But Apple is making sure nobody misses the news by pushing a new ad to users of its Wallet app.

To take advantage of the deal buyers need to use their Apple Card to make the purchase, with the monthly fee added to their minimum card payment every month.

The new ad was spotted by M.G. Siegler and shared on Twitter. And I have to admit to being left with a bad taste about the whole thing.

Wow, this is... aggressive. An almost full-screen self-ad on launch of the Apple Wallet app... pic.twitter.com/v5ABveCx7PWow, this is... aggressive. An almost full-screen self-ad on launch of the Apple Wallet app... pic.twitter.com/v5ABveCx7P— M.G. Siegler (@mgsiegler) December 16, 2019 December 16, 2019

The ad itself isn't really the issue here, but rather where it appears. The Wallet app should't be somewhere for ads to appear. It's for handling payments and keeping tabs on your Apple Card balance. It's where store cards hang out, not where Apple should be advertising iPhones.

Over the years I've pointed at some of Samsung's poor advertising decisions as well as the deals it's done with other companies that fill its phones with bloatware. But this doesn't feel too dissimilar in some ways, with Apple leveraging its Wallet app to push ads at people.

Am I being harsh, or should Apple be held to a higher standard? Especially given its positioning as the last bastion of privacy and add-free everything? Let me know below.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.