Ben Lovejoy

The iPhone Air managed to beat the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge to become the slimmest smartphone on the market, though we noted at the time that it’s not the slimmest smartphone we’ve ever seen.

The latest contender on the Android front is the shiny new Motorola Edge 70, which is very slightly thicker than the iPhone Air, but has a much thinner camera bump and compares well in several other ways …

Most people upgrade their MacBook Pro no more frequently than once every five years, and some leave it considerably longer than that. But Apple always makes it sound like even last year’s model is now hopelessly outdated, something it did again with the launch of the M5 MacBook Pro.

There’s no doubt that the company is achieving incredibly impressive year-on-year increases in Apple Silicon performance, but real-life tests show that upgrading from one generation to the next doesn’t make sense for the vast majority of MacBook owners …

One of the big promises of Apple Intelligence is the ability to interact with our apps. Instead of the relatively simple requests we can currently make of Apple Music, for example, we should be able to give the app a vibe-like steer on what we’d like it to play and let it figure out which tracks match our spec.

That’s a capability Amazon has just made available in the iOS and Android versions of its own music app by introducing support for its own next-generation intelligent assistant, Alexa+ …

The Liquid Glass user interface is both the headline feature of iOS 26 and one of the most controversial things Apple has done in recent years.

The company has now officially released iOS 26.1, leaving users able to choose whether to keep Liquid Glass as it is or tone it down dramatically …

Apple CEO Tim Cook turned 65 on November 1, leading to renewed speculation about when he might step down and who might replace him.

Four names have led the rumors to date, although the one most frequently mentioned was ruled out back in the summer …

My colleague Ryan last week expressed concern that Apple’s upcoming HomePod Touch device might be making the same mistake as the original speaker.

But while I do suspect it may be something of a slow burn, I think the device will eventually achieve a much larger market even at the same price …

Apple is hosting a Christmas tree drawing competition, inviting iPad users to submit their creations for the opportunity to have it projected onto an iconic London building. It follows the projection of drawings created by David Hockney, which were displayed on the building in 2023.

The company says 24 winning submissions will be projected onto Battersea Power Station, home to its UK headquarters, alongside commissions from notable figures like Stephen Fry …

I said only recently that it’s getting harder and harder to believe Apple can deliver on the new Siri. The company’s backtracking on announcements coupled to very vague statements on revised timings were certainly not making it easy to imagine that the new intelligent assistant will deliver.

I’m not yet ready to do my own U-turn on this, and my skepticism still very much remains, but there have at least been a couple of encouraging signs in the last few days …

The Aura Ink is not your typical digital photo frame, and on the basis of the specs alone it doesn’t sound too impressive. That’s because it’s a color e-ink display, with all the drawbacks that entails.

It can display only four different colors – white, yellow, red, and blue – takes around 30 seconds to change from one photo to the next, and is expensive at $499 for a 13.3-inch model. And yet, despite all this, it’s actually the best digital photo frame I’ve ever used …

Security-conscious readers probably already use the data breach alert site Have I Been Pwned, but a new Proton website is aiming to alert you at an earlier stage with what the company says will be near real-time reporting.

The company behind ProtonMail says it has launched the Data Breach Observatory because it can sometimes take too long to find out when your personal data has been made available for sale on the dark web …

Apple and/or its customers were facing billions of dollars a year in additional costs after increases to US tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the Trump administration earlier this year. The company had initially absorbed these costs, but it was unclear how long that might last, with future price rises seeming likely.

There’s some good news today, however, with Trump halving the additional tariffs imposed after meeting with China’s President Xi. Additional tariff increases that were scheduled to come into effect shortly have also been suspended …

A new report by a corporate watchdog says that Apple spent €7M ($8.1M) lobbying the EU in the past year, making it the joint second-largest spender in the tech sector. It says tech giants now spend more on EU lobbying than Big Pharma and the automotive industries combined.

It also reveals that Apple held a total of 76 meetings with Members of the European Parliament and high-level European Commission staff …

A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple’s Family Sharing feature can be weaponized by a former partner.

Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways …

A bipartisan bill could lead to teams being banned from using AI chatbots, in response to parents expressing concerns about inappropriate content ranging from sexual conversations to assistance with suicide planning.

If the proposed GUARD Act becomes law, then it could impact Apple in three different ways – including the company’s plans for the new Siri …

One of the key compromises with the iPhone Air is a smaller battery, but a combination of real-life usage and lab tests suggests that it will get you through a typical day.

In one lab stress test, for example, where the phone is used with the screen on maximum brightness for three hours of video streaming, the iPhone Air dropped 15% of battery life – which is the same as the iPhone 15 …

A new report says that Apple is expecting to announce annual Service revenues of well over $100 billion during its earnings report later this week.

If accurate, that would make the company’s Services division a bigger business than either Walt Disney or Tesla …

We learned back at WWDC25 that US passport support would be coming to Apple Wallet. It hasn’t yet arrived in iOS 26, but the company yesterday confirmed that it is on the way.

An update to the Apple website last month told us to expect it by the end of the year, and Apple’s VP of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, Jennifer Bailey, confirmed in a conference keynote that it is still happening …