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 CVE security program used to track vulnerabilities in both hardware and software has had its federal funding removed with immediate effect. Apple is one of a number of tech giants who rely on the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program to identify security flaws in their products.
Update: CVE board members have responded by announcing a new non-profit known as the CVE Foundation, intended to continue the work – more at the end …
Expand Expanding Close
The AirTag lost baggage feature that lets you share the location of your bags with your airline has come to Taiwan for the first time.
China Airlines has announced support, following adoption by both Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines earlier this year …
Expand Expanding Close
Car rental company Hertz says that the personal data of an unspecified number of customers was stolen, and that this includes name, contact information, date of birth, credit card information, and driver’s license information.
While the company has not revealed the scale of the security breach, it appears to be a very substantial one, affecting customers in the US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia …
Expand Expanding Close
The biggest reason Apple hasn’t yet launched a foldable iPhone is reported to have been the company’s dissatisfaction with the very visible crease in several generations of competitor models.
We heard earlier this year that Samsung had solved this problem to Apple’s satisfaction. A new report backs this, noting that neither of Apple’s other display partners has yet managed to do so …
Expand Expanding Close
We’ve been hearing about a foldable iPhone for a great many years, but things do finally seem to be solidifying, with an iPhone Fold now expected to launch next year. The latest report indicates that it will have another long-awaited feature: Face ID embedded beneath the display.
Update: In a follow-up post, the same leaker has stated that this is not expected, but with an unexplained reference to an “internal screen test” of an “under-screen camera” …
Expand Expanding Close
Apple has blocked access to 14 cryptocurrency apps, at the request of the South Korean financial services regulator. The ban applies to crypto exchange apps operated by KuCoin, MEXC, and 12 other companies.
The country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) says that all 14 exchanges were operating illegally, and that Apple must not permit the apps to be installed or updated after April 11 …
Expand Expanding Close
The new Chipolo POP is a colorful new tracking tag that works with both Apple’s Find My and Google’s Find My Device networks. Unlike AirTag, it has a built-in hole for easy attachment to keyrings and bags.
It’s not the first time that we’ve seen Find My-compatible trackers from the company – we tested one of them back in 2021 – but it’s the first time you haven’t had to use an app to get cross-platform compatibility …
Expand Expanding Close
Trump’s rationale for his threatened tariffs is to force companies to manufacture in the US. He’s cited the example of Apple making iPhones in the US, and even recently claimed that the company plans to do so.
Apple has explained many times why it simply wouldn’t be practical to do this, with CEO Tim Cook doing so a full decade ago. Analysts, supply-chain experts, and a former Apple engineer have all added their weight to the view that it simply isn’t possible, and wouldn’t help even if it were …
Expand Expanding Close
Let’s see, where are we in the Trump tariff saga? After the White House increased tariffs on Chinese imports <counts> five times in the space of nine weeks, we then got a “pause” and an exemption on consumer electronics products – before the latest development.
Namely, the White House yesterday said that the exemption, which covers all Apple products, was only a temporary one, lasting 1-2 months. However, there are three reasons why this is exceedingly unlikely to be true …
Expand Expanding Close
I said a few years ago that Express Transit is a tiny feature that makes a huge difference, and planning a last-minute trip revealed the same is true of another Wallet feature.
The ability to add foreign transit cards direct to the Wallet app before you even leave home is a traveler’s delight …
Expand Expanding Close
The Trump administration yesterday announced punishing import tariffs on a long list of countries, including all of Apple’s key manufacturing hubs. It’s been estimated that this would force the company to either increase US prices by 40% or see its profit slashed by 32%.
The news saw stock market slumps around the world, with AAPL stock falling more than 7% in pre-market trading on fears of the impact …
Expand Expanding Close
Prototypes of an OLED iPad mini display are currently being evaluated by Apple, according to a leaker with a decent track record.
It seems pretty clear by this point that the next model will have an OLED screen, and it will definitely be worth waiting for if you currently have an older model …
Expand Expanding Close
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has turned up the dial to 11 on his anti-Apple rhetoric, calling the iPhone maker a “gangster-style business” which has concluded that “crime pays.”
He said that both Apple and Google are guilty of the same practices, including using scare tactics to make iPhone and Android users afraid to install the Epic Games Store …
Expand Expanding Close
In a somewhat surreal event, the National Labor Relations Board has frozen two cases against Apple after Trump nominated one of the iPhone maker’s defence lawyers to head up the watchdog.
The NLRB was due to hear cases alleging that Apple illegally fired two organizers of the #AppleToo movement, but both cases have been “postponed indefinitely” just days after Crystal Carey was nominated to head up the body …
Expand Expanding Close
iPhone farms – banks of phones equipped with rotating temporary Apple IDs – are being used to send more 100,000 scam iMessages per day, found security researchers.
By using iMessages rather than texts, scammers can bypass spam and scam filters implemented by mobile carriers. Fraudsters don’t even need any technical skills to carry out their attacks, as there are companies offering phishing-as-a-service (PhAAS) …
Expand Expanding Close
Verizon-owned Visible seems to be offering a much better unlimited mobile data deal than its parent company. The new Visible+ Pro plan includes 5G Ultrawideband, unlimited hotspot usage, 4K video streaming, cellular service for one Apple Watch – and claims to have no throttling.
The cost of the plan is $45 per month, which is $20 cheaper than Verizon’s own Unlimited Welcome …
Expand Expanding Close
A number of people are reporting that previously deleted iPhone apps are reappearing on their devices after upgrading to iOS 18.4.
Some Reddit users are also claiming apps they have never installed have appeared on their iPhones …
Expand Expanding Close
At least five VPN apps in the App Store were found to have links to the Chinese military, according to a new report today. Three of them have racked up more than a million downloads.
A subsidiary of one of the Chinese companies behind the apps is currently hiring for a role in “monitoring and analysing platform data,” with a familiarity with American culture listed as a job requirement …
Expand Expanding Close
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported a couple of days ago on what he described as “Apple’s biggest push into health yet with a new AI doctor.”
While I completely understand why Apple would want to do this, I think the company will need to tread extremely carefully to avoid the risk of doing more harm than good …
Expand Expanding Close
Mark Gurman’s recent Q&A revealed a little snippet of information about iOS 19 – its codename within the Apple teams working on it – and it sounds very much like it tells us what to expect …
Expand Expanding Close
Apple has gotten a lot of flack for talking up Apple Intelligence while delivering very little of it, and now it seems Amazon is about to do the exact same thing.
A new report citing internal company documents suggests that Alexa+, Amazon’s equivalent of the new Siri, will also launch without many of its headline features …
Expand Expanding Close
The number of Made in India iPhones is expected to more than double this year, as Apple seeks to further reduce its dependence on China, says a local report.
Key iPhone assembler Foxconn is said to be conducting trials to ensure that it can ramp up volume while meeting Apple’s tight quality standards at its latest iPhone plant in the country…
Expand Expanding Close
An Apple patent has described extending the Apple Watch Fall Detection system to other wearable devices. This includes Vision Pro, a future Apple Glasses product – and even a smart contact lens.
The patent says that such wearables could be even more effective that the Apple Watch implementation, for two reasons …
Expand Expanding Close
Apple has been fined $162M by France’s competition regulator for the way App Tracking Transparency is implemented, stating that this is an abuse of the company’s powers.
This bizarre ruling follows a complaint by a group of trade associations representing advertisers who are no longer able to access user data to serve personalized ads …
Expand Expanding Close