Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer who started his career on PC World and has written for dozens of computer and technology magazines, as well as numerous national newspapers, business and in-flight magazines. He has also written several books, and creates occasional videos.
He is old enough to have owned the original Macintosh. He currently owns an M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro, an M1 13-inch MacBook Air, an iPad mini, an iPhone 16 Pro Max, and multiple HomePods. He suspects it might be cheaper to have a cocaine habit than his addiction to all things anodised aluminum.
He’s known for his op-ed and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review:
He speaks fluent English but only broken American, so please forgive any Anglicised spelling in his posts.
He gets a lot of emails and can’t possibly reply to them all. If you would like to comment on one of his pieces, please do so in the comments – he does read them all.
Like a great many people, I’ve been impatiently waiting to leave the Siri AI waitlist, and that finally happened last night.
It’s early, but what I’ve seen so far has me very excited for the future …
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Looking back, I was surprised to see it’s been more than eight years since I put my iPhone on a notifications diet. My iPhone is a far calmer place because of this.
But there’s another long-standing issue with notifications: there’s still no way to separate useful ones from marketing and other junk …
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Apple recently introduced Personalized Collections in the App Store, which provides users with individually tailored recommendations for new apps they might enjoy.
Two security researchers have highlighted the extremely extensive analytics data the company is capturing in order to compile these recommendations, logging every tap you make …
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Only three existing iPhone models get access to all of the new on-device Siri AI features: the iPhone 17 Pro, Pro Max, and iPhone Air.
While the base model iPhone 17 is excluded, it’s very likely that the non-Pro version of the iPhone 18 will get access to all of the new features …
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A common complaint about mobile carriers is that they launch attractive new plans and other deals that are limited to new subscribers, leaving existing customers feeling short-changed.
Verizon is aiming to avoid this by combining the launch of new plans targeting switchers with a loyalty program for existing customers. Both are being promoted with an Austin Powers ad campaign …
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Apple’s antitrust battles with the European Union are many and varied, and it may now be facing yet another one.
Italy’s competition regulator has today opened an investigation into whether Apple illegally preferences iCloud over third-party cloud services – and says it will be sending a report to the EU Commission …
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Alongside question marks on whether the first folding iPhone will be branded as the iPhone Fold, iPhone Ultra, or something else, there’s also been uncertainty about the launch timings. (I’m going to refer to it as the iPhone Ultra purely to avoid clumsy phrasing.)
There have been multiple reports suggesting that the launch could be significantly delayed, but a new comment from a leaker with a decent track record says otherwise …
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The iPhone 17 Pro switched from the titanium casing of earlier models to aluminum alloy, with a resulting mix of pros and cons. A new report says that the iPhone 18 Pro will use the same alloy with the same advantages and disadvantages.
The material is highly effective at heat dissipation and was generally found to be robust in durability testing. However, one problem was noted by some iPhone 17 Pro owners …
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Fox has announced that it is buying video streaming company Roku for a total of around $22 billion, including taking on debt. It follows the acquisition of Tubi back in 2020.
The move will make the combined company the third largest player in US television, measured by share of viewing …
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A growing number of countries around the world are enacting bans or restrictions on the use of social media apps by children.
The UK has just announced its own plan to join the list, with a comprehensive ban set to be introduced early next year …
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If there’s one thing which is usually a very bad idea even for the most enthusiastic of Apple fans, it’s installing a first developer beta on any of your daily driver devices.
However, since my iPhone is the only iOS device I own recent enough to give access to the new Siri, and I’m extremely curious to try it, I made an exception in this case …
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In asking one big question and highlighting 11 key features about iOS 27, I said that the Liquid Glass debate was over. Apple introduced a slider that enables everyone to choose their exact desired degree of transparency, including effectively switching off the effect altogether.
But in running the developer beta on my main iPhone with the Liquid Glass effect maxed out, I’d now argue that the company has done far more than this …
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The menu icons in macOS 26 Tahoe were roundly criticized for being both ugly and making Macs harder to use. A software engineer pointed out that Apple warned against this very mistake in guidelines published way back in 1992, and the company is now reiterating that decades-old advice as developers get to try macOS 27 Golden Gate …
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We know that Siri AI and other Apple Intelligence features are powered by Google’s Gemini models, but Apple has been at pains to point out that this is not the same as running Gemini on iPhone.
While there are still some unknowns, a far clearer picture is emerging about exactly what all of this means …
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Kindles have long offered a recap feature intended to act like the “Previously …” feature often seen on TV shows. It’s intended to remind you of a book’s story and characters when restarting reading after a lengthy gap.
Amazon last year announced a far more sophisticated Story So Far version, and the feature is now finally rolling out to Kindles and the iPhone app in the US …
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The head of London’s Metropolitan Police has described how the service is working with Apple to tackle iPhone theft.
The partnership includes sharing data with each other to measure the effectiveness of Apple’s anti-theft protections, with significant successes noted to date …
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One controversy to mar the launch of Siri AI was the news that it will not as yet be available within EU countries.
The EU told Apple that it would have to allow third-party AI providers to offer similar functionality on iPhones, and the company has responded by withholding an EU launch for now. We’re now learning that Meta’s WhatsApp is being faced with a similar demand …
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A number of people have been complaining that the new Siri demos during the keynote videos were a little on the slow side. There were notable lags of several seconds between Siri requests and the task being carried out.
But while the ideal we’re aiming for is for AI tasks to be carried out as quickly as possible, what we saw is kind of good news …
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There’s been an unusually large drop in the price of AAPL stock so far this week, losing roughly $25 per share in the two days since the WWDC keynote.
While some are inevitably speculating that investors weren’t impressed by Apple’s AI announcements, there are other factors at play …
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Yesterday’s WWDC 2026 keynote was a very different beast to its predecessors – and not just because the company spent more than ten minutes talking about child safety and screen time in response to growing concerns by regulators.
The structure of the keynote presentation was completely different to what we have seen in the past, but we can expect this to be the new normal …
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Almost two years after Apple first showed off a video promoting the new Siri and lots of exciting new Apple Intelligence features, that future has finally arrived – at least in first beta form.
The company had a lot of ground to make up. Obviously, the test will be how well the new features work in real life usage, but let’s start with what seemed to me to be the most important things the company announced …
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Ahead of yesterday’s keynote, we asked you how optimistic you were about what the company was likely to announce. The executive summary was that there was absolutely no consensus.
Votes were split very evenly between very optimistic, somewhat optimistic and not very. So now that you’ve heard what Apple had to say, what were your impressions … ?
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Each new iOS update comes with new features for existing AirPods, but this year’s announcements were a little light …
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If Apple truly does deliver on its new Siri and other Apple Intelligence features, then you’re very likely to want to upgrade to iPadOS 27 if your device supports it.
Apple does aim to provide OS updates for each of its devices for as long as possible, but the demands of the new features mean that only the most recent models will support the upcoming update …
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