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.
We’ve long cautioned against disclosing sensitive personal data in AI chatbot sessions, given that most companies use these as training data, but there’s now an even bigger reason.
Things got way worse over the weekend when Redditors discovered that you could access some Claude AI chats through a simple Google search …
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The upcoming MacBook Ultra was never going to be cheap, with an all-new sleeker design, OLED, and touchscreen – even before the price increases driven by higher memory costs. A new report now suggests the manufacturing cost could be pushed yet higher
Apple typically likes to have multiple suppliers for components in order to maximize the reliability of display and allow it to negotiate the best possible prices, and it had hoped to do so for the MacBook Ultra. However, a supply chain source says Apple has decided to use just one display supplier …
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Ray-Ban Meta Glasses and the latest cheaper non-designer option are sold on the basis of the built-in AI features, but in early July the company announced a “ridiculous” limit on the free usage you can make of an accessibility feature.
Effectively, Meta has retroactively applied a paywall to a hardware product it already sold to customers. Update: The social network has now said it is “pausing” plans to paywall the feature – see the end of the piece.
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Security researchers demonstrated that Claude Cowork could escape the sandbox intended to control the access it gets to your Mac. The exploit, dubbed ShareRoot, could allow an attacker to read and write files stored anywhere on your Mac, as well as access login credentials for online services.
Around half a million Mac users had co-work sessions exposed, and some still remain vulnerable to the exploit today …
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A Bloomberg report suggests that Apple Glasses might be launched without the capability to take photos or record video. Apple is said to be considering this option as a way to address privacy concerns.
However, while I do absolutely understand the thinking that would leave the company to mull this option, my own experience of Ray-Ban Meta glasses is that video recording is absolutely core functionality for this type of product …
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AppleCare One – a version of AppleCare+ that allows you to protect multiple products for a single monthly payment – is rolling out the the UK.
Additionally, AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss protection is also expanding from iPhone only to iPad and Apple Watch too …
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Mention of a new Apple Card feature in iOS 27 brought to mind a banking app feature I recently had to enable after discovering it was not on by default.
This too relates to automatically recurring card payments, and it turned out not to work in the way we might expect it to …
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The exact launch timings of the iPhone Ultra remain unclear as a new supply chain report says that Foxconn is making “final adjustments” to the manufacturing process. It follows an earlier report stating that mass production had begun.
Recent reports indicate that Apple will unveil the new folding iPhone at its September event, but that initial availability may be limited …
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You’d think that it would be obvious that it’s a terrible idea to ask an AI chatbot for a medical consultation, but hundreds of millions of people do it every week.
In one near-death example now the subject of a lawsuit, ChatGPT advised a pastor to ignore symptoms of a pulmonary embolism – a condition with a mortality rate of 30%. In fact, the advice it offered very likely made things worse …
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One of the reported reasons for Apple taking such a long time to introduce a folding iPhone is that the company was unhappy with the very visible crease and vulnerability of earlier generations of flexible screens.
Display partner Samsung finally solved this to Apple’s satisfaction, and the launch of the Korean company’s latest folding smartphone has now provided a preview of what we can expect from the iPhone Ultra display …
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Apple devices were long known for having some of the highest-quality LCD screens in the business, and that remains the case for today’s MacBooks. The company upped the ante first through retina displays and then mini-LED backlighting. This is the reason Apple has been in no great hurry to adopt OLED technology.
It has, however, been making a phased transition to OLED. Apple first introduced the display tech with the Apple Watch, followed up with iPhone and iPad models, and the MacBook Pro is next in line for the upgrade …
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The exhibition space in the Apple Park Visitor Center at Cupertino has been temporarily closed.
The company hasn’t revealed what form the improvements may take, but the current use of the space does seem to be very inefficient …
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AirTags are a great way to protect and track luggage, but adding them to smaller devices like cameras can be tricky.
Some people just put them in a generic holder attached to the camera strap, but this isn’t exactly discreet, and a thief would likely immediately spot and remove it. Fortunately, there are better solutions …
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A supply chain report says that the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models have now entered mass production ahead of their launch in September.
Assembly partner Foxconn is said to be offering significant bonuses to returning workers as it seeks to ramp up recruitment to peak levels …
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A Bloomberg report yesterday suggested that Apple is about to launch a new Apple Upgrade leasing contract to replace the iPhone Upgrade Program.
There appear to be two significant differences between the two, and one of those is potentially very worrying …
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The Apple Watch is undoubtedly one of the most capable wearables on the market, but not everyone wants a device that needs to be recharged daily and constantly demands their attention.
The majority of you have long agreed with me that Apple should also make a smart ring, and today’s launch of the Garmin Cirqa Smart Band adds to the evidence of growing demand for screen-free activity trackers …
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A planned merger of two major streaming platforms, HBO Max and Paramount+, may not be happening after all.
The plan was announced back in March after Netflix dropped out of the bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery. However, a federal judge has now imposed a restraining order preventing the transaction from completing – at least for now …
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Apple has already increased the prices of most of its products very significantly after it said it could no longer absorb far high memory costs. iPhone price rises are also expected when this year’s models launch in September.
The majority already took the pessimistic view that these rises will be permanent, despite the company’s claims that it was working hard to address them, and it’s now looking like things could get even worse as TSMC increases chipmaking prices …
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Next year could see the introduction of the largest ever iPhone screen, according to a leaker with a decent track record.
Supply chain sources indicate Apple is trialing a new display, which may be destined for a new iPhone whose name remains a mystery for now …
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A poll of thousands of 9to5Mac readers suggests that higher Apple prices are likely to slow upgrade cycles, even among the most enthusiastic of customers.
Upgrading less frequently was by far the most common response given by readers, while just 9% of respondents said that the price increases wouldn’t affect their purchasing behavior …
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There have been growing complaints about users experiencing beach balls on the Mac when running macOS 26.5, with some also saying that their trackpad becomes completely unresponsive for several seconds at a time.
Activity Monitor typically reveals three culprits, and there does now appear to be a reliable solution to the problem …
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Tech writer Joanna Stern wrote last month about discovering 10 fake versions of her book I Am Not a Robot on Apple Books within days of the real thing being published. While she was able to get these removed, new ones quickly appeared.
New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill found a fake biography of herself on Amazon, and discovered this was one of thousands of AI-written biographies available on sale …
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When Apple finally responded to the dramatically increased costs of memory and other components, the company didn’t hold back. Some of the price hikes exceeded 50%, while memory and storage upgrades literally doubled in some cases.
There’s a strong possibility that these higher prices will remain in effect for years, and quite possibly permanently …
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Meta has announced that parents can receive alerts when their teens discuss suicide or other forms of self-harm with its AI on Instagram, Facebook, or Meta Horizons.
You’ll need to opt in to Meta’s supervision tools for parents and guardians in order to select the family accounts you want to supervise …
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