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.
Journalists, lawyers, politicians, and human rights activists have all been targeted by NSO’s Pegasus software, and Apple has now said that it will send security alerts to customers whose devices may be been compromised. It has already done so for at least five Thai activists and researchers.
It follows Apple’s announcement yesterday that it is suing NSO for attacking iOS users …
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Earlier this year, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the Apple-designed chip journey would continue as the company worked on developing its own modem chip, and that we might see this as early as 2023. A new report today echoes this, but seems more confident about the 2023 date.
Apple currently uses Qualcomm for its modem chips, but has for many years been unhappy about this …
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The Apple Car project has gotten renewed interest recently, but it’s being suggested today that an Apple e-bike could be even more interesting.
I’ll start by saying I’m not convinced this makes sense as a product category for Apple – but, after trying the most Apple-like of electric bicycles earlier this year, an Apple eBike is still something I’d personally love to see …
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One complaint from new M1 Mac owners is that there doesn’t seem to be any way to enable 1440p Retina scaling on external monitors.
Apple has never officially supported this on sub-4K monitors, but there were workarounds for Intel Macs that don’t work with any of the M1 machines. Fortunately, there is now a solution …
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An Italian investigation into alleged Apple and Amazon price fixing in the sale of both Apple and Beats products has found the companies guilty. They have each been fined by the antitrust regulator.
The two companies have also been ordered to end their restrictive agreement on the sale of Beats products on Amazon …
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Today has seen yet another AAPL record high. At the time of writing, the stock was sitting at $165.08, up well over 2%. This is the third time the stock has hit a new record high this month.
Walter Bloomberg has tweeted that the stock has also seen the highest percentage gain of any company listed in the Dow Jones index, though he didn’t specify a timescale …
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My shiny new 16-inch Apple Silicon MacBook Pro claims two big advantages over its Intel predecessor. First, the performance of the M1 Max. Second, power efficiency, aka battery life.
For my personal usage patterns, the two are quite distinct. The time when I want power is for video editing, when I’ll almost always be sat at my desk hooked up to a large monitor. When I want battery life, my typical usage is very different…
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A Seiko WristMac – what an auction house is referring to as the “first Apple Watch” – is up for auction. The device was sold in 1988 as an early Macintosh accessory …
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Samsung’s new smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 4, saw the company dramatically boost its market share in Q3, according to a new report. Most of that was at the expense of Huawei and Apple, the Cupertino company’s share of the market dropping by 10%.
However, that’s largely a matter of timing, which favored Samsung in two ways …
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If you’re returning a faulty Apple kit for a straightforward exchange, I just discovered a way to do it that I didn’t know existed: a doorstep replacement.
My Magic Keyboard with Touch ID yesterday developed two faults in quick succession. First the LED on the caps-lock key failed, then Touch ID stopped working …
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While Apple’s M1 Max chip is touted as being twice as fast as the M1 Pro, a series of MacBook Pro creative pro tests suggest that the real-life benefit of the top-tier chip may be far more limited than it appears for even relatively demanding use.
There are specific tasks that see a significant difference. If you’re editing ProRes video or working with Apple’s Metal graphics API, there is a clear benefit to the more powerful chip. But that isn’t the case for many creative tasks…
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The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has asked mobile carriers to delay part of their US 5G rollout plans over fears that new frequencies could interfere with altimeters on aircraft – despite no supporting evidence …
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Samsung’s iPhone display business is under growing threat from Chinese competitor BOE, which is gearing up to match the production of the Korean supplier …
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Jason Sudeikis and other Ted Lasso cast members have attended a Q&A event at The Grove, the LA Apple Store opening today.
Apple says that the store, which originally opened in 2002, is now twice the size and has been “entirely reimagined” …
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Some people are finding that an Apple Watch $100 rebate program announced by Apple is not being honored by carriers.
Bloomberg Apple correspondent Mark Gurman has gone as far as to say that the deal is “designed to not pay out” …
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Jony Ive has long talked about the idea of an all-glass iPhone, dubbed “a single slab of glass” – and the company has now been granted a patent for a potential design, along with a glass Apple Watch and Mac Pro tower.
The illustration of the all-glass iPhone is the most detailed, showing displays on both sides, as well as functional touchscreen buttons on the edges …
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Even before the jury reaches a verdict, a Rittenhouse mistrial motion has been filed by the defendant’s attorneys, with Apple tech again at the heart of a dispute regarding video evidence. It follows an earlier argument about the iPad pinch-to-zoom feature.
The latest issue is being widely reported as relating to AirDrop, but in fact Apple’s Mail app is the source of the problem …
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An agreement has finally been reached on the scope of planned European antitrust legislation. It was previously unclear whether or not Apple would be included in the companies targeted, but it has now been confirmed that the definition will be broad enough to include the iPhone maker.
There had been significant disagreements about the appropriate targets for the EU’s planned Digital Markets Act (DMA). Some wanted it to be laser-focused on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, while others wanted it to target the very largest tech companies …
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Today has seen another Apple PR fail as the company has, once again, waited until forced to act – this time over Right to Repair pressure. The company has finally now accepted that consumers should be allowed to repair their own Apple kit, including the very latest and most complex devices.
Apple’s previous resistance has been widely seen as both greedy, and inconsistent with the company’s environmental stance. Many repairs are simply not worth doing at official Apple prices, making it more likely that consumers will simply dispose of broken devices and buy new ones.
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Epic’s battle with Apple, in which both sides claimed victory, is at least partly motivated by the developer’s metaverse ambitions, suggests a new report today. The term was used by Facebook, which even renamed the company to reflect its goals in this area.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said there’s a race to be the first metaverse company to get a billion users …
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Wireless standards continue to evolve, and while the iPhone 13 supports Wi-Fi 6, Apple is expected to adopt the more advanced Wi-Fi 6e tech in the iPhone 14. However, a new Ming-Chi Kuo report says that the company may find key components in short supply.
We previously outlined the key benefit of Wi-Fi 6e over the plain Wi-Fi 6 version …
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The Waterfield Latigo leather iPhone holster is a mostly improved version of the American company’s previous Ranger model, which I tested earlier in the year. Designed for each of the iPhone 13 models, it’s also compatible with the iPhone 12 lineup.
It’s not something I personally need at this time of the year, but I will value it in warmer weather, so I put it to the test …
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A delay to the completion of the new Apple London campus inside the iconic Battersea Power Station has seen the company lease additional space inside the City’s tallest skyscraper at 22 Bishopsgate.
The company’s new campus was due to be completed at the end of last year, but this was delayed by the pandemic and other factors …
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Designer and developer Broank has created a beautiful lockscreen weather Shortcut, which updates your lockscreen wallpaper with a pretty photo and a weather report. The Shortcut requires iOS 15, and an iPhone X or later.
By default, it grabs nature and landscape photos from a free stock photography website, but you can change it to use your own photos if you prefer …
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