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’s dependence on China has never been brought into sharper focus than now, with COVID-19-related disruption at the biggest iPhone assembly plant costing the company an estimated billion dollars per week.
A new report says that the company’s efforts to diversify production have continued to make progress, but that iPhone production remains hugely dependent on China …
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Apple has been sued after last week’s fatal Apple Store crash in Hingham, Massachusetts, in which one person was killed, and 20 others were injured, some of them seriously …
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The butterfly keyboard lawsuit has been resolved after a judge approved Apple’s proposed payouts to owners of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models with the faulty keyboard design.
Owners whose machines required repair are set to receive compensation that ranges from $50 to $395, depending on the extent of the work needed. However, the payouts will be made only to those who purchased their MacBooks in US states covered by the class action suit …
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The iPhone City lockdown has ended, allowing free movement of residents and workers in Zhengzhou, China. The move will help relieve pressures at the Foxconn plant after a massive production disruption that is estimated to have cost Apple around a billion dollars a week in lost iPhone sales.
The ending of COVID-19 restrictions in the city will allow Foxconn to exit the closed-loop production process, which has been a key factor in the plant’s recent troubles …
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The Apple Podcasts Award winner for 2022 has been announced. Apple named Slow Burn as its show of the year, for its coverage of the history of the landmark abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade.
The Cupertino company has also announced the availability of six Slow Burn Extras, one of which is about the making of the Roe v. Wade episode …
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Composers and musicians have long argued that streaming music treats them unfairly, with smaller artists earning tiny sums. But a UK competition watchdog has ruled that the streaming music industry is fair to both artists and consumers …
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After Musk announced that most banned Twitter accounts would be reinstated, a report says that around 62,000 accounts with more than 10K followers each have so far been restored.
Other Twitter news includes a claim that the layoffs and resignations have left the company with just one person responsible for removing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) …
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Apple faces the prospect of a union busting lawsuit, over alleged illegal activities designed to persuade Apple retail staff to abandon plans to unionize. It follows two formal complaints about the company breaking the law in the US.
Union organizers are collecting information on anti-union moves in order to prepare a case. It comes shortly after staff at the St Louis Apple Store suspended unionization plans in the face of what was described as “increased hostility” toward workers …
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Google has issued an emergency Chrome update for Mac users, to fix what the company refers to as a “high-severity” security vulnerability …
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Elon Musk recently hinted that Twitter encrypted DMs were on the way, using full end-to-end encryption – and code spotted in the iOS app suggests that it will use the same E2E encryption standard as Signal.
Plans for E2E encryption of Twitter direct messages date back to at least 2018, and it appears that the company has resuscitated code written back then …
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The iPhone 14 Pro shortage could hit as many as 6 million units before production recovers, according to a new report. The shortfall has already made it too late to order either of the Pro models in time for Christmas in many countries.
Additionally, large-scale lockdown protests in Shanghai could potentially put MacBook production at risk …
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A massive Twitter data breach last year, exposing more than five million phone numbers and email addresses, was worse than initially reported. We’ve been shown evidence that the same security vulnerability was exploited by multiple bad actors, and the hacked data has been offered for sale on the dark web by several sources.
It had previously been thought that only one hacker gained access to the data, and Twitter’s belated admission reinforced this impression …
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There have been mass resignations of iPhone workers following the recent unrest at the plant, caused by Foxconn failing to pay the promised recruitment bonuses, and growing fears about the COVID-19 outbreak within the plant. More than 20,000 new hires are said to have left.
An internal estimate reportedly says that more than 30% of production could be lost, with iPhone 14 production already falling way behind demand in the crucial run up to the holidays …
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Elon Musk has today announced an innovative solution to the problem of impersonation: Twitter verified accounts will actually be verified.
Additionally, there will now be three different checkmark colors, for your chroma-based pleasure …
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A new report today says Twitter’s Brussels office closed after all of its staff either resigned or were fired. The development has sparked concerns about whether the company intends to ignore a new law on content moderation.
The prospect seems even more likely after Musk again decided to leave it to his Twitter followers to decide whether virtually all banned accounts should be reinstated …
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At least two sports sources are reporting that Apple has “expressed interest” in buying UK soccer team Manchester United.
The club is up for sale by its present owner, with a number of other parties also said to be interested in a potential acquisition …
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Foxconn admits it made a “technical error” that resulted in newly recruited iPhone workers being paid less than they had been promised. The admission follows violent clashes between workers and police at the world’s largest iPhone plant in Zhengzhou, China.
The company has pledged to correct the error for those who stay, and has offered compensation to any new recruits who no longer want to work there …
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The typical Twitter Blue subscriber, many of whom bought the subscription in order to get the blue verification checkmark, has 560 followers, says a new analysis.
Subscribers include a significant number of accounts associated with the alt-right and election fraud, says the report …
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When 5G was first launched, the big question for smartphone users faced with the prospect of replacing their devices to use it was: Is 5G worth it?
The huge popularity of 5G devices seemed at first to indicate a resounding yes, but there are now concerns that the novelty has worn off, and that many are still seeing little real-life difference between 4G/LTE and 5G speeds …
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The British government says that the UK digital services tax (DST) has raised £360M ($430M) in its first year, and that 90% of it came from five tech giants, known to include Apple.
The tax of 2% of gross revenue earned in the UK was designed to partly counter tax-avoidance measures used by Apple and others to funnel UK profits into low-tax territories like Ireland. Other business paying the DST include Amazon, Google, and Facebook …
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Violent clashes between iPhone workers and police have been seen in video footage from Foxconn’s primary iPhone assembly plant in Zhengzhou, China. You can see the video clips below.
Workers say that promised bonuses (referred to in local reports as “subsidies”) have not been paid; that there is inadequate food and medical supplies for workers locked into the facility; and that the company is failing to properly separate infected and uninfected employees …
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Apple cloud gaming and mobile browser policies are again under investigation in the UK, following a public consultation on the topics.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had already investigated both issues, and found Apple and Google guilty of anticompetitive behavior, but says that the public wants a “fuller” investigation …
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Since Musk’s takeover, Twitter news has been… interesting. But there does look to be some good news today, as the company aims to begin replacing engineers and set itself some new goals …
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Elon Musk’s Twitter is continuing to generate concern and entertainment in roughly equal measure.
With the majority of the site’s engineers having resigned or been fired, former employees had warned that it was only a matter of time before systems started to break, and we’ve now seen the first major example of this …
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