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.
After years of speculation, Apple’s Reality Pro headset is expected to debut at WWDC in June. But an Apple Glasses launch is likely still years away, and the Xiaomi Wireless AR Smart Glasses have just given us a very good understanding of the reason for this.
While the role expected to be performed by Apple Glasses is technically achievable today, we’re nowhere near the kind of form factor we’d expect from an Apple product …
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Yesterday highlighted CHIPS Act rivalry between Intel and TSMC in particular, as the US chipmaker voiced its view that American firms should get higher priority when it comes to financial assistance from the government.
However, the White House has effectively given Intel a slap, by stating that the goal of the fund is not to help out struggling companies – and hinted that Apple chipmaker TSMC is likely to be a higher priority …
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Android Emergency SOS via Satellite equivalent services look set to become the norm on higher-end phones, within a few months of Apple first activating the service late last year.
MediaTek is the latest company to offer a radio chip with support for satellite comms, following earlier announcements by Qualcomm and Samsung …
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The link between teen girls’ mental health and social media usage is not just correlational, argues an NYU-Stern professor: There is now solid evidence that it is causal.
The argument coincides with the European Union banning TikTok from official devices, following similar moves in the US …
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Intel has argued that, as a US company, it should get higher CHIPS Act subsidies than US chip plants owned by foreign companies like Apple chipmaker TSMC – even if its own plants sit empty.
TSMC, which is in line to receive subsidies for its Arizona plant, has hit back at the argument, stating that allocating cash by company HQ location would not be an efficient use of the money…
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Update: Apple has now commented on the findings – see the end of the piece.
Cybersecurity company Jamf Threat Labs has found Mac cryptomining malware in pirate copies of Final Cut Pro. The firm says that the cryptojacking malware was particularly well hidden, and not detected by most Mac security apps.
Jamf also warned that the power of Apple Silicon Macs is going to make them increasingly popular targets for cryptojacking – where malware uses your machine’s considerable processing power to mine cryptocurrencies for the benefit of attackers …
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Update: The consultation has now begun, and will last for 12 weeks – see end of piece.
Under a proposal currently being discussed, tech giants could be asked to help pay for European 5G infrastructure, with Apple potentially on the list of companies receiving a bill.
The European Union is planning to consult on the idea of asking companies which generate a lot of Internet bandwidth to contribute to the cost of upgrading the telecoms equipment used to deliver it …
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Last year saw rumors of Samsung satellite comms connectivity in the Galaxy S23, following the launch of Emergency SOS via Satellite in the iPhone 14 lineup. That didn’t happen, but the company has now announced its own modem chip that includes the feature.
The company apparently plans to try to leapfrog Apple, however, by beating the company to photo and video sharing via satellite …
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A report back in December suggested that the iPhone 15 battery life may be improved by the move to a 3nm process for the A17 chip. Now it seems like the display driver may also play a role in boosting the time you’ll be able to go between charges.
This, too, is made possible by using a smaller process, as the OLED display driver chip is reportedly moving from 40nm to 28nm …
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The TSMC Arizona plant set to make chips for Apple has been one of the most high-profile results of political attempts to boost America’s chipmaking capabilities – but it is now coming under fresh scrutiny, according to a new report.
Some employees are said to consider the plant a potentially damaging distraction, which could place the company’s technological lead at risk. Others say it’s simply a bad business decision …
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A beta version of the Android app includes a hidden WhatsApp newsletters feature, which the company appears to be readying for testing. Such tests are normally conducted on the Android app ahead of the iOS one …
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It sounds like science fiction, but Apple has been granted a patent for a color-changing Apple Watch band – with different color combinations selectable from a Watch app.
The patent even describes the band being able to display “icons, shapes, and text,” and using band color changes to signify notifications …
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Gen Z is key to Apple’s dominance, according to a new report – which says that fear of being “the green bubble guy”‘ in group chats is a key motivation.
The report also underlines the importance the iPhone plays in hooking people into the Apple ecosystem, spurring sales of AirPods, iPads, and Apple Watches …
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M1 Mac Linux 6.2 support is now available – an achievement that Linux creator Linus Torvalds originally saw as an impossible task. It can be run on the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra chips.
Torvalds had long wanted an ARM laptop capable of running Linux, and when the M1 MacBook Air came out said that it would have been the perfect machine but for the fact that Apple wouldn’t allow another OS to access the GPU and other elements …
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A cybersecurity company has revealed that hackers obtained data center logins for Apple and other major companies. They were also able to access surveillance cameras remotely, and the privileges they had could even have allowed physical access to servers.
Hackers gained access to two third-party data center companies used by many major companies, and from there were able to obtain customer support logins for Apple, Amazon, BMW, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and as many as 2,000 other companies …
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In a somewhat ironic move, a new TikTok Creativity Program asks creators on the short-form video app to make videos longer than one minute, to be eligible for higher earnings …
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A significant number of users are experiencing multiple HomePods responding to Siri commands simultaneously. This is something that is normally prevented by Apple devices communicating with each other.
Many of us have multiple Apple devices within earshot, any of which could potentially respond to a “Hey Siri” command. In my home office, for example, I have my Watch, my iPhone, the stereo-pair HomePods on my desk, and another HomePod in a nearby bathroom …
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If you use Microsoft Outlook, and your inbox is full of junk this morning, it’s not just you: Many users are reporting that Outlook spam filters aren’t working …
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Geekbench creator John Poole has explained why switching to Mac led to him creating the benchmarking tool – and how it helped diagnose a cracked heatsink in a more recent Mac …
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If I’d asked the Bing chatbot to support our argument that Apple won’t be adopting ChatGPT type AI tech anytime soon, it really couldn’t have done a better job than some of its recent conversations.
Bing’s AI has threatened some users, insulted others, and told one that his wife didn’t really love him the way Bing does …
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9to5Mac yesterday gave an exclusive first look at the iPhone 15 design, based on CAD drawings provided to a reliable casemaker.
It appears to be a truly beautiful evolution of the flat-sided form factor first seen in the iPhone 4, revisited in the original iPhone SE, and then revived for the iPhone 12 to iPhone 14 …
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A lobbyist working for Apple, Google, Samsung, and other tech companies succeeded in diluting the impact of a Right to Repair law. Tech trade group TechNet gave suggested wording to NY Governor Kathy Hochul, who reportedly inserted that language verbatim.
The new wording places limits on the spare parts that tech giants have to make available to customers and independent repair shops …
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A new Apple patent application describes a way to transform an iMessage to a voice note. In this way, the recipient can choose to have your message read to them not in Siri’s voice, but in yours.
To do this, you would each need to share a voice file containing the data the iPhone would need to mimic your voice when reading the message aloud …
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One of the decisions you need to make when buying a MacBook Pro or new Mac mini is the chip: M2 Pro vs. M2 Max. We’ve seen what Apple has to say about the differences, and how they stack up in benchmark rankings.
A new piece today looks beyond the benchmarks to how the two chips compare when used for real-life video work in the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It’s not exactly a detailed comparison, but it does provide a pointer to the three usage cases likely to justify the M2 Max …
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