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.
Average mobile data usage now exceeds 10GB per month, says a new report. The increase in data usage is partly driven by growth in 5G devices, with 5G users set to double this year.
But two further factors explain the surprisingly high figure, says mobile network company Ericsson…
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Analyst Ben Thompson believes that US antitrust legislation could put the Apple ecosystem at risk unless the company is prepared to compromise on the App Store.
The danger is that legislators may view the various ecosystem components as anti-competitive, but would be less likely to do so without the App Store playing such a central role …
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Beats cofounders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are creating a new high school that they say will be aiming to attract kids who feel disconnected from the current schooling experience.
It will be modeled after the University of Southern California academy they funded, and which they said was geared to the vision of Steve Jobs …
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One of the benefits of an iPhone is that you get iOS updates for five or more years. But when it comes to the iOS 15 update, Apple is for the first time offering iPhone owners a choice of two options.
You can either upgrade to iOS 15, or you can choose instead to remain on iOS 14 but still get security updates. That’s a slightly odd option to offer, and Macworld has a theory about it …
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The path to getting a UK contact tracing app was a rather tortuous one. The country initially decided to ignore the joint Apple/Google API and develop its own app. Having wasted literally millions of pounds doing so, it then reversed course and decided to build the COVID-19 API into an NHS app.
Unfortunately, my experience suggests that even the API-powered app doesn’t work too well in practice …
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Level Home has announced what it says is the smallest smart lock ever made, the Level Lock. As with the company’s two existing products, the smart lock is designed to look totally unobtrusive.
The Level Lock is HomeKit-compatible, and now also works with Alexa …
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Market intelligence firm Counterpoint is out with its latest report on the global tablet market, which shows that the iPad market share increased in Q1, year-on-year.
Apple had already enjoyed 33% more iPad sales in 2020 than in 2019, and the data shows that the good news continued into the first quarter of this year …
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If you’re looking to keep your Apple devices charged while you’re on the go, a new dual-sided MagSafe powerbank for iPhone 12 and AirPods might be just the thing.
Zens has today announced four new powerbanks with support for MagSafe wireless charging …
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CEO Tim Cook has highlighted Apple’s new privacy features to European users, with a new video on the Apple UK YouTube channel (embedded below).
Cook tops and tails a six-minute video, which mostly comprises privacy-related clips from WWDC …
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A new Spatial Audio ad (embedded below) has just been posted to the Apple Music YouTube channel, featuring the Masego & Don Toliver track Mystery Lady.
Update: Bizarrely, the ad itself doesn’t use Spatial Audio, just a lot of stereo channel separation. You need to listen to the separate Behind the Sound video in the Apple Music app to hear the real thing …
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Market intelligence company Canalys is forecasting that global smartphone shipments will grow 12% this year, despite challenges posed by the chip shortage. However, it says that phone makers will need to choose their priority countries and regions…
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Much as I rely on my Apple Watch, I do need a good reason to upgrade models, and so far Apple has had a mixed track record in persuading me to do so.
I started with the original model, aka the Series 0. My next upgrade was to the Series 3, which sold itself to me primarily on the Siri improvements …
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Apple is facing yet another antitrust investigation, though this one seems odd: It’s an examination of the Apple/Google duopoly in the mobile operating system market.
Today’s report from Japan is very light on details …
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A gag order imposed on Apple by the Trump administration should never have been allowed, argues Microsoft president Brad Smith.
We learned last week that the Department of Justice served a subpoena on Apple, requiring it to hand over data on both journalists and members of the House Intelligence Committee …
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Trackpad gestures are a much-loved macOS feature, but if you wanted to use the Windows equivalent – Windows Precision Touchpad gestures – you were out of luck until yesterday.
Microsoft added the trackpad gestures way back in 2013, and there have been a variety of unofficial drivers to allow them to be used on Macs, but it’s only now that Apple has offered support for them as standard through Boot Camp, in version 6.1.15 …
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I’ve argued for years that moving beyond passwords is something that urgently needs to happen from both a security and usability perspective.
The technical framework to make it possible to abandon passwords – WebAuthn – was agreed back in 2018, and Apple added support for it in Safari last year. Adoption is as yet close to zero, but all that looks set to change, thanks to the latest move by Apple …
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Microsoft OneDrive for Mac is being updated with a significant number of improvements, designed to make it both easier and faster to use. The company used a blog post to lay out its roadmap for upcoming enhancements for Mac users.
Topping the list is Known Folder Move, which is a simple way to ensure that your working documents are always backed-up to OneDrive, no matter which folders they are in …
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A “cold tech war” between the US and China could still leave Apple in the firing line, argues Wedbush, even after the Biden administration rolled back some of the Trump-era policies.
President Biden this week revoked the scheduled US bans on TikTok and WeChat, and has generally been taking a less aggressive stance with China, but there is still plenty of potential for trouble ahead …
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An IATA Travel Pass app is expected to go live sometime within the next couple of weeks, enabling travelers to prove to airlines that they have received COVID-19 vaccinations and/or tested negative for the infection.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is the trade association for airlines, representing almost 300 of them …
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We’ve so far had a variety of predictions about when we might expect an M1X MacBook Pro launch. Jon Prosser’s claim of WWDC was of course proven wrong, while Bloomberg was more cautious in suggesting “as soon as early this summer.” We now have another new entry, this one proposing November…
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An iPod touch prototype has surfaced, apparently showing an alternative design for what would be the 5th-generation model of the device – and, to my eyes at least, it looks better than the model Apple actually launched …
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House Democrats are reportedly set to announce no fewer than five US antitrust bills, one of which would in part target Apple’s App Store.
The planned legislation is based on recommendations made in the 450-page antitrust report, which found that Apple was among the tech companies to engage in “deeply disturbing” anticompetitive behavior …
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Siri antitrust concerns have been expressed by businesses, says the European Union’s competition chief, with the same issues being raised about Alexa and Google Assistant. The remarks were made after a consultation process that heard from more than 200 companies over the course of a year.
Competition head Margrethe Vestager said there are four concerns…
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The US Senate has approved $52B in funding to boost US chip production, as part of an effort to address the global chip shortage, and to reduce dependence on China. Apple was one of the companies lobbying for the move.
In total, the US Innovation and Competition Act provides almost $250B in funding for US manufacturing, with $52B of it specifically allocated to chip fabrication. However, it is as yet unclear whether it will also pass in the House …
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