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 mandatory USB-C ports, third-party app stores, access to the iPhone’s NFC chip, and more, Apple could be facing yet another European legal requirement – this one about battery replacement.
A proposed new law would require electronics companies like Apple to ensure that consumers are “easily” able to remove and replace batteries themselves …
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Brand owner Anker has finally responded to proof of a major Eufy camera security breach, but its official statement still leaves a great many questions unanswered.
The company has now admitted that it lied to users about all footage and images being stored locally, and never sent to the cloud, after a security researcher proved that this was not true …
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Likely high demand for OLED iPad models is one factor in Samsung Display changing its development plans, according to a new supply chain report.
Samsung had been working on an even more advanced form of OLED panel than the type it will be making for Apple, but it has now postponed that project …
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An Apple TV app for Android is rumored, which would bring the Cupertino company’s streaming video service to Android smartphones and tablets for the first time.
Apple TV is already available on Android TV devices …
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Update: TikTok says it is today launching a new tool to provide greater transparency on how videos are added to a user’s feed. For any video, you can tap the Share panel then the question-mark icon called “Why this video?”. So far, it appears only very generic reasons are being offered – like “This video is popular in the United States” – but the company is promising greater granularity later …
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A serious Mac Gatekeeper bypass vulnerability has been fixed by Apple, after it was discovered and reported by security researchers at Microsoft.
The flaw allowed malware to bypass Gatekeeper checks. Notably, the vulnerability even affected Macs running in ultra-safe Lockdown Mode …
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A report claims that Foxconn is asking sick iPhone workers to turn up for their shifts in the Zhengzhou plant, with at least one report stating that workers are being advised not to take COVID-19 tests.
Foxconn’s campus in Zhengzhou, China, is the largest iPhone assembly plant in the world, estimated to produce around 80% of the world’s iPhone supply – including all iPhone 14 Pro models …
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Some 2023 MacBooks are set to be made in Vietnam, as Apple continues its push to reduce its dependence on China as a manufacturing base.
MacBook production could begin in Vietnam as early as May, says a new report. The piece doesn’t specify whether the plan refers to the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or both – but the move would hit an important milestone in Apple’s diversification plans …
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The weekend saw Mark Gurman reporting on his understanding of a revised 2023 Mac Pro plan by Apple. Essentially, he believes Apple to have abandoned plans to make the machine the ultimate Mac, relying instead on user expansion options to unleash the full potential of the machine.
In a sense, that’s a return to the original concept of the first-generation Mac Pro way back in 2006 …
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Expansion of iPhone production in India is one of the key ways in which Apple is trying to reduce its dependence on China. But a report suggests that small farmers and local officials could make life difficult for the Cupertino company.
Specifically, it suggests that buying the land required for additional Apple assembly plants could prove tricky …
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The Twitter madness continued over the weekend, as Elon Musk first banned users from linking to their profiles on other social media sites, then apologized for doing so after a deluge of objections. Twitter Support tweets announcing the policy were deleted.
Musk subsequently said that major policy decisions would be decided by Twitter polls (I promise I’m not making this up), and then posted a poll on whether he should step down as CEO, promising to abide by the result …
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A couple of days ago, we saw video footage of a helicopter rescue of the occupants of a car that went off the road and plunged to the bottom of a ravine. The occupants were rescued thanks to a combination of Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via satellite on an iPhone 14.
More video has now been posted, and it shows just how incredibly lucky the pair was to survive …
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Foxconn has ended most iPhone City COVID restrictions, after the local government removed its Zhengzhou plant from a “high risk” classification. The Chinese government also finally appears to be ending the ultra-strict COVID Zero policy which was behind the restrictions.
Of particular note, the iPhone assembler has ended its controversial point-to-point system, which was a significant source of worker unrest at the plant …
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Chief Twitter free speech enthusiast Elon Musk has suspended the accounts of a number of prominent journalists reporting on him, blocked links to rival social media service Mastodon, and closed the group audio feature Twitter Spaces, after facing awkward questions there.
Musk has described himself as a free speech absolutist, arguing that anyone should be allowed to say anything …
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Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite service got a lot of time in the keynote, with the company proudly announcing that the service is free for the first two years.
What Apple hasn’t told us is what happens at the end of those two years. There’s one obvious answer, of course, but there are other possibilities …
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Apple CSAM scanning plans may have been abandoned, but that hasn’t ended the controversy. An Australian regulator has accused the Cupertino company of turning a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of children.
She said that both Apple and Microsoft fail to take steps to protect “the most vulnerable from the most predatory” …
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Apple Store staff working in a newly designed store in a London shopping mall have unionized. They say they are seeking a pay raise, pay transparency, improvements to shift work, and less focus on metrics when assessing their work.
Apple Store aficionado Michael Steeber has described the new store design as “unprecedented” …
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One of the many antitrust investigations into Apple seems set to mandate alternative app stores, and it was yesterday reported that the Cupertino company is making plans to bow to the inevitable.
While there will be the usual chorus about politicians interfering in the way that companies operate, this change will be a win for all Apple users, even if we have no plans to go anywhere near a third-party app store …
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Update: Around 20 minutes later, the problem appears to be fixed. Please let us know in the comments if you are still experiencing problems.
Many are reporting that they are unable to access the Apple Store, in the US and other countries.
When attempting to do so, either nothing happens, or an error message results …
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A proposed move by Elon Musk could see Twitter ads tracking you whether or not you want them to, a new report suggests today. This would appear to be in clear violation of Apple’s App Store rules.
A separate piece describes some of the desperate moves Musk is either taking or considering in order to save money – including breaking the law by refusing to pay severance to former employees …
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Verizon is offering both new and existing customers free Netflix for a year – if they sign up to another streaming service too.
The offer is intended to promote Verizon +play, a service that lets customers manage all their streaming subscriptions in one place …
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The Emergency SOS via Satellite feature rolled out to four new countries yesterday, but a patent granted the same day suggests that Apple satellite plans may extend much further than getting help in an emergency.
While the emergency service is limited to text-based communications, Apple’s patent describes how it could use satellite comms for voice, video, and more …
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One of the ironies of Apple’s long-running battle with the FBI over the agency’s desire for a security backdoor into iPhones is that it could have taken advantage of one which already existed: The fact that iCloud backups of iPhones didn’t use end-to-end encryption. Apple has now finally fixed this with Advanced Data Protection (ADP).
ADP not only closes a privacy hole which should have been closed a long time ago, but will also relieve Apple of the need to engage in any similar legal battles in future …
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With Lensa AI taking the top slot in the App Store charts, thanks to the viral appeal of its “magic avatars,” brace yourself for a deluge of AI photo apps – both real and fake.
AI and machine-learning have so far been buzzwords that developers love to include, whether or not their apps really use it – but the open-source Stable Diffusion deep learning tool is currently blowing minds, and Lensa AI is using it to turn selfies into impressive avatars …
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