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.
Apple manufacturing in Vietnam is set to expand, as the Cupertino company continues working on reducing its dependence on China. The 2023 Mac Pro looks likely to be one of the products assembled there, which would mean Apple dropping the “Made in USA” tag used for the 2019 model.
Foxconn already makes iPads and AirPods in Vietnam, but so far hasn’t begun iPhone or Mac assembly in the country …
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Apple has explained how it worked with The Conservation Fund to support McIntosh SEED, a forestry program designed to promote racial justice, encourage sustainable forestry, and help fight climate change.
Expand Expanding Close“To promote justice and address climate change, we have to share resources and partner with organizations that have real on-the-ground expertise,” says Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives. “I’ve always believed the most powerful solutions come from centering the most vulnerable communities, not ignoring them. In places like McIntosh County, families are coming together to preserve the land that sustains all of us” …
New market intelligence data reveals that Chinese iPhone sales were up 6% year-on-year during the period in and around the Chinese New Year.
While some are pointing to this as a sign that 2023 will be the post-pandemic year of recovery for the smartphone market globally, others are skeptical about how long the trend will last …
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Four new Edison Mail widgets have been announced by the company, explaining that they are designed to reduce the number of times you need to open your inbox.
Edison says the updates are inspired by National Time Management Month, which is all about applying the “four Ds” of effective use of your time …
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AI chat apps like ChatGPT and Google Bard may be the hottest thing in tech at the moment, but new data suggests that once-hot AI photo apps like Lensa have had their day.
Analytics company Apptopia looked at the download trends for Lensa AI and other leading AI photo apps, and found that after a very strong peak in mid-December, numbers have fallen to the initial levels seen in the summer of last year. Three factors are likely to have been at play …
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We’re seeing a growing number of reports about the upcoming 15-inch MacBook Air. Display analyst Ross Young yesterday said that panel manufacturing is already underway, but a new report goes further and says that mass production of the new machine began in the Lunar New Year.
The Lunar New Year began on January 22 …
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The Zens 4-in-1 iPad + MagSafe wireless charger is the latest in a line of combo chargers, and while there are many that charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods case, this one throws in iPad charging too.
For bedside use, I’m a big fan of all-in-one wireless chargers. For overnight charging, the convenience of wireless beats the speed of wired charging, and having everything in one place offers a couple of benefits …
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We first heard reports about a 15-inch MacBook Air almost a year ago now, and I noted at the time that it could be the perfect machine for many users.
A report yesterday indicated that the machine may be arriving early in April, and while customers have had a long wait, I suspect that the timing is not coincidental …
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A significant number of users are finding that their Twitter timelines are dominated by tweets from Elon Musk.
It follows the company’s owner complaining to engineers that his tweets weren’t getting as much attention – firing a senior one who told him it wasn’t a technical issue, just people being less interested in what the billionaire had to say …
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A 50% rejection rate for iPhone casings produced by an Indian company is a stark illustration of the difficulties Apple faces in reducing its dependence on China. Apple’s target for casings that fail to pass quality control is 0%, with Chinese suppliers reportedly getting extremely close to this.
The attitude of Indian suppliers is also said to compare poorly with the can-do approach of Chinese companies, with one former Apple engineer saying that there is no sense of urgency in its Indian supply chain …
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A report says that Apple has expressed interest in acquiring NBA streaming rights for Apple TV+, but existing agreements mean that it cannot make a formal bid.
Disney’s ESPN currently holds exclusive TV rights to National Basketball Association games, and has said the network “hopes” to keep them, but a comment by the company’s CEO suggests that it may see the NBA as a nice-to-have rather than an essential part of its offering …
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A new breed of wardrobe apps could help reduce fashion waste, by enabling people to make the most of the clothes they already own, swap clothing with people with similar tastes, and ensure that clothing is resold rather than sent to landfill.
The apps are part of a growing environmental movement against “fast fashion,” in which cheaply-made clothing is worn once or twice and then disposed of …
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Jony Ive designs had a huge impact on Apple products for over 20 years, but since his departure from the Californian company, he seems to be designing anything but technology …
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We first heard reports of an upcoming Apple hardware subscription back in March of last year, with two subsequent reports – the most recent one yesterday – stating that it’s been delayed, but the company still plans to launch it.
Details are sparse, but it does appear that it will differ from the existing iPhone Upgrade Program in at least two ways – and likely a third …
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Reinstating the accounts of ten users previously banned for hate speech or promoting dangerous conspiracy theories will see Twitter earning millions of dollars in additional ad revenue, according to a new report today.
A separate report says that Twitter engineers have been placed in an impossible position: Musk demanding changes which they cannot implement due to code freezes …
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The iFixit HomePod 2 teardown isn’t the first one we’ve seen since the launch of the new model, as Brandon Geekabit got there first. But the company does echo the comments on repairability of this model compared to the original, together with a cool video clip of the woofer in action (below).
Back in 2018, iFixit said that the innards of the original model were a nightmare to access, the firm literally having to cut the device open …
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Apple’s senior director of iPhone design says that the base-model iPhone 14 is more powerful than the iPhone 13 Pro – despite having the same A15 chip.
The claim is made in a new interview, in which he says that the non-Pro iPhone 14 offers other significant benefits over its predecessor …
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The Japanese antitrust regulator has completed its study of the mobile app market, and concluded that it is dominated by an Apple and Google duopoly.
It says that while it hopes the two companies will make changes voluntarily, and that existing antitrust regulation can be used to apply pressure, new legislation would be the most reliable way of ensuring fairness …
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A “historic” agreement has seen Apple recognize a union of UK Apple Store workers, some three months after staff voted in favor of unionizing. It happened just one day after the company appointed its first ever Chief People Officer.
Apple has signed a collective bargaining agreement which will see the company negotiate with the union over pay, shift patterns, and other working conditions …
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I was surprised when none of the HomePod 2 reviews I saw included blind tests of the new HomePod versus the old HomePod. That’s now been corrected.
The most notable thing about Apple’s 1,550-word press release announcing the new model is that not once did the company say it was better than the original. This from a company which loves to proudly proclaim that “this is the best iPhone yet” every single year …
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Chat AI tech is without a doubt the most exciting thing to have happened in the world of technology for quite some time – providing answers to questions, writing essays, generating working code, or even passing an MBA exam through a conversational UI.
Microsoft announced that a version of ChatGPT will power a conversational search feature within its Bing search engine. Google has been quick to announce that it, too, will use its own AI chatbot, Bard, for searches. Does all this mean that Apple too will climb aboard this next-generation chat AI tech to finally make Siri smarter … ?
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The planned Microsoft Activision acquisition has been provisionally blocked by the UK’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) …
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The infamous TikTok algorithm, which has been accused of taking users into dangerous rabbit holes, could be shared with US officials, says the company. TikTok owner ByteDance is hoping that the offer of transparency will fend off further bans of the Chinese video sharing app.
Not everyone is convinced that the offer goes far enough, however …
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Apple’s UK antitrust appeal has been scheduled for March and is expected to take just one day. As we noted last month, the case will hinge on the legal meaning of the word “shall” …
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