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.
The Spanish prime minister’s iPhone was infected by NSO’s Pegasus spyware, says the government. Defense Minister Margarita Robles’ phone was also hit. This is just the latest in a slew of high-profile Pegasus attacks revealed within the last few weeks.
While it is foreign governments who would most want to target phones belonging to most prime ministers, there’s another obvious suspect in the case of Spain …
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Analysts seem generally happy with the AAPL outlook despite the company’s stark earnings call warning, but one has warned that iPhone prices may rise outside the US. While this could happen across the complete range of Apple products, it’s likely to be especially problematic for the iPhone 14.
Apple reported record earnings for Q2, but warned that revenue for the current quarter would incur a hit of anywhere from $4B to $8B due to five issues …
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Bloomberg has echoed concerns about Apple’s dependence on China for what the company terms FATP: final assembly, test, and pack.
Mark Gurman observes that it was Tim Cook who was responsible for the decision to use China as an assembly hub, back in the days when he was the company’s chief operations officer …
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Cellebrite iPhone cracking kit allows the company’s clients to access virtually all of the private data stored on a phone – in some cases, even if the phone is locked.
But the exact capabilities depend on both the model of the iPhone and the version of iOS it is running. We managed to get access to the user documentation for a recent version of the kit to see what it can do …
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Analysts – and investors, of course – wanted to hear yesterday’s Q2 earnings, but they were even more eager to get any clues to how AAPL Q3 2022 numbers might look.
The company reported record revenue for fiscal Q2, despite component shortages, but the company warned that things could get tougher in the current quarter …
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Strong iPhone growth saw Apple as the only smartphone brand to increase shipments during the first quarter of the year, according to a new market intelligence report. All other major brands saw their shipments shrink – by anywhere from 4% to 30%.
The independent estimate follows Apple’s earnings report yesterday, when the company revealed that iPhone revenue was up 5.5% year-on-year …
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Perhaps the craziest thing about the new suitcase-sized Soundboks Go is not that it makes the original HomePod look like the mini – rather that it’s not the company’s largest battery-powered Bluetooth speaker …
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AAPL earnings for Q2 2022 (calendar Q1) will be announced by the company later today, and analysts are expecting the news to be good.
While professional analysts are more cautious than independent ones, all expect significant year-on-year growth almost across the board …
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While many fear that Elon Musk’s vision of “absolute free speech” is just another way of saying Twitter toxicity is set to increase, the company is doing its best to reassure advertisers that it will protect them from being associated with any of it …
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In addition to sharing its estimates of the global PC market, with Mac shipments the standout, Counterpoint Research has also pulled together its best prediction of the component shortage outlook for this year.
It shows that we can expect a significant improvement in the course of 2022, but shortages will remain in four component categories …
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Mac shipments grew 8% in the first quarter of 2022, while the top two PC brands saw their own shipments suffer double-digit falls.
A new report today says that a combination of four factors saw the global PC market fall by 4.3%, while Apple enjoyed by far the largest growth …
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If I had a dollar for each time I’ve heard someone complain that autocorrect sucks, I’d be able to buy an Apple Polishing Cloth.
But yeah, people do complain, and even the guy who created the feature – Ken Kocienda – admits that sometimes it can be more of a hinderance than a help. Indeed, if you think that it’s gotten worse rather than better over the years, that can actually be true …
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Studio Display webcam complaints were one of the standout things from early product reviews. The WSJ’s Joanna Stern took the turn-of-phrase prize for her description of the image quality, describing it as reminiscent of the camera on a BlackBerry.
The complaints were allayed for a time, when it appeared that the issue could be fixed in software, but are back with a vengeance now that we know that’s not the case …
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We learned last month that Apple was tricked into releasing personal data to hackers, after they posed as law enforcement officials with emergency data requests. A follow-up report reveals that some of this data was used to sexually extort minors.
The latest report also sheds light on how the hackers were able to fool Apple and other tech giants, including Facebook, Google, Snap, Twitter, and Discord …
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iPhone production in India grew by 50% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022, according to new market intelligence data. Sales within the country are also growing, despite the fact that average selling prices are increasing through the sale of more premium models.
While Apple initially limited Made in India iPhones to older models, the company confirmed earlier this month that the iPhone 13 has joined the lineup of locally produced devices …
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Apple last year dropped the polarizing Touch Bar from the MacBook Pro models, but Dell has just launched a new laptop with a touch bar in the trackpad …
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A new Japanese antitrust report into the smartphone market has raised the possibility of new legislation intended to reduce the dominance of Apple and Google. It calls for multiple app stores for each platform.
Additionally, it suggests that the preinstallation of Apple and Google’s own web browsers on smartphones means that competitor apps are disadvantaged …
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Apple’s MetLife Building renovation plans have been approved, ahead of a new billion-dollar campus at the Research Triangle Park in Cary, North Carolina.
The main campus, some 10 miles down the road, is expected to cost around $1B, while the renovation to the nearby MetLife Building 3 has a more modest budget of around $19.3M …
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Reactions to Elon Musk buying Twitter are in, and it’s fair to say that the overall tone is not one of wholehearted support. Even Twitter itself is taking precautions against potential employee reactions.
But the purchase does have at least one fan: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey …
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Streaming video giant Netflix has no USP, argues an analyst, which is why its current dominance is in question as newer services challenge it with clearer unique selling points – like Apple TV+ …
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It’s Earth Day today, an annual opportunity to demonstrate support for the environment, and to call for policies that help to protect our planet. As always, Apple is promoting the occasion with a prominent link on the apple.com homepage.
The company kicked things off earlier this month by announcing that it would donate $1 to the World Wildlife Fund for every Apple Pay transaction made in Apple Stores, through the Apple Store app, or on its website from April 14 to today …
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It seems hardly a day passes without fresh news on Apple’s supply chain problems. Recent ones focus on the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in China, but the global chip shortage continues to bite.
Apple had hoped that Chinese display manufacturer BOE would be able to make as many as 40M iPhone displays this year. A shortage of display driver chips saw the goal reduced to 30M, but even that is now in doubt …
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The first Apple mangrove preservation project began in 2018, with the focus then on the role the saltwater trees play in decarbonization. The company has now extended this environmental work into India, this time stressing the additional part mangrove trees play in protecting coastal communities.
Apple has partnered with the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF) to help local people transition their economy from one that destroys mangroves to one that is incentivized to protect them …
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A new women in tech report shows that Apple is now ahead of the curve when it comes to its leadership roles.
For a long time, Apple was accused of having a “‘male, pale, and stale” leadership – another way of saying “older white men” …
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