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 two technothriller novels , a romcom novel, and an SF novella series.
He is old enough to have owned the original Macintosh. He currently owns an M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air 11, 12.9-inch iPad Pro (LTE 256GB), iPhone 13 Pro Max (256GB), Dell Ultrawide 49-inch monitor, an Apple Watch (Series 4 WiFi) and multiple HomePods – he suspects it might be cheaper to have a cocaine habit than his addiction to all things anodised aluminum.
He thinks wires are evil and had a custom desk made to hide them, known as the OC Desk for obvious reasons.
He’s known for his op-ed and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review:
He considers 1000 miles a good distance for a cycle ride and Chernobyl a suitable tourist destination. What can we say, he’s that kind of chap.
He speaks fluent English but only broken American, so please forgive any Anglicised spelling in his posts.
If @benlovejoy-ing him on twitter, please follow him first so that he can DM you if appropriate. If you have information you can pass on, you can also email him. If you would like to comment on one of his pieces, please do so in the comments – he does read them all.
We learned earlier this month that a Reddit user had his iPhone 15 Pro Max order from Apple intercepted somewhere in the shipping process, and received a fake iPhone 15 Pro Max instead.
While he was sufficiently savvy to quickly realize that it wasn’t the real thing, we can now take a close look at the fake he likely received – with both hardware and iOS 17 software cloned …
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Three former Apple employees – two of them the ones who developed the Shortcuts app – are working on a new project: Bringing AI to the Mac.
The trio say their aim is to bring back some of the magic you used to feel when powering-up a personal computer back in the 80s – though they do also give a simple example of the kind of practical application they have in mind …
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If you use Chrome on Mac, it’s strongly recommended to update it immediately, as a security flaw discovered by Google is being actively exploited by attackers. It could potentially allow personal data to be extracted from your Mac (the same issue also affects Chrome on Windows and Linux).
Google says it is aware of at least one real-life case of the exploit being used by a bad actor …
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Update: Whether AirDrop is vulnerable to this exploit is unclear, but the odds are against it. See the update at the end.
Two newly-discovered Bluetooth security flaws allow attackers to hijack the connections of all devices using Bluetooth 4.2 to 5.4 inclusive – that is, all devices between late 2014 and now.
Six separate exploits have been demonstrated, allowing both device impersonations and man-in-the-middle attacks …
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A sketchy report claims that plans to design an in-house Apple 5G modem chip have been abandoned, after the company struggled to make progress with the project.
It follows a series of reports describing the challenges faced by the company, including one which suggested that the project was proving a “spectacular failure” …
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Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charles T Munger died yesterday – the man Warren Buffett credited with the change of investment strategy which led to the conglomerate investing massively in AAPL …
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The advanced glass-plastic hybrid lens used in the iPhone 15 Pro Max is likely to be adopted by high-end Android phones, according to a new investment note by Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
The hybrid design brings some of the benefits of glass lenses to smartphones, which usually have to use plastic lenses …
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Bloomberg last month reported that Apple is working on a 2nd-gen Vision Pro headset which could reduce the price by around half, and that is today backed by a new supply-chain report.
The report says that the company is currently working on no fewer than four variants of a future headset, and that Apple is aiming to halve the manufacturing cost with one of these …
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Three new Ikea sensors are being added to the company’s smart home product line-up, each set to cost less than $10.
None of them natively support HomeKit, but the company says that all support the $69 Dirigera hub, and has promised that will be upgraded to Matter at some point …
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More than 100 brands have now ceased ads on X over antisemitic content allowed to propagate on the social network. They are following the example of companies like Apple and Disney, which made the decision early last week.
X itself had estimated that the financial hit could be around $11M, but the company’s own internal documents reveal that the total loss could be as high as $75M …
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A solid-state cooling system called AirJet was able to cool an M2 MacBook Air enough to keep with the M2 MacBook Pro when running a demanding benchmark test over a sustained period.
The bad news is that the system isn’t available for sale to consumers to retrofit, and it’s hardly likely that Apple will use it to remove a key differentiator between the two models – but the company behind the tech does think it could help Apple reduce the size of cooling fans in future MacBook Pro models …
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A chance decision made early next year turned out to pay dividends some 18 months later: An Apple Watch worn overnight proved incredibly helpful when dealing with a bout of insomnia.
Specifically, it helped me through a common vicious circle with insomnia: You can’t sleep, you get stressed about the fact that you’re not sleeping, which makes it harder to fall asleep …
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Two major dating app companies have suspended Instagram advertising after tests mimicking the behavior of child predators led to ads being served alongside sexually explicit material.
Other brands affected include Disney, Pizza Hut, and Walmart …
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The US, UK, and 16 other countries have signed an agreement pledging to take steps to make AI “secure by design.”
Although acknowledged to be a basic statement of principles, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has said that it’s an important first step …
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Usually when I get a new iPhone, you can expect two or three iPhone diary pieces from me, reporting my experiences of the photo and video capabilities of the new model. Sure enough, one piece followed quickly – testing the 5x telephoto lens for portraits.
I’d expected to quickly follow up with another piece on using the same lens for cityscape photos. Only … it hasn’t actually proven very useful for these …
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Foxconn founder Terry Gou has withdrawn his bid to become the next president of Taiwan, issuing a somewhat opaque statement which included the phrase “stop, reset, restart.”
Whatever Gou’s exact meaning, it seems that he is out of the race for good this time around – which will likely come as a relief to Apple execs concerned about potential retaliation by China …
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Dbrand is suing Casetify for allegedly stealing the teardown designs it uses for skins and cases for Apple and other devices. Dbrand began its extensive collection of internal designs with a skin for the iPhone 13 Pro Max back in July of last year.
Update: Casetify has now removed all of the Inside Out cases from its website, redirecting to its best-sellers, as Dbrand shares close-up images of the easter eggs uses to identify the images (see bottom of piece). Casetify has also tweeted a statement, but reading the replies, that isn’t going well …
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An analysis of LinkedIn profiles in the tech industry reveals that the most popular destination for former Apple employees is Google.
Unsurprisingly, it also shows people making the switch in the opposite direction, though Apple employees are most likely to have come from Intel, Microsoft, or Amazon …
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Two key Apple suppliers are reported to be in a patent battle over the iPhone 15 Pro Max tetraprism lens. The maker of the periscope lens currently exclusive to the top-end iPhone 15 is seemingly concerned about competition from another Apple lens supplier.
For once, this battle doesn’t directly involve Apple – it’s between Taiwanese lens maker Largan Precision, and Chinese lens company Yujingguang …
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The mystery of what led the OpenAI board to take the precipitous step of firing CEO Sam Altman may now have been solved. A new report says a number of researchers warned them of a new breakthrough which they said could threaten humanity – after Altman seemingly failed to inform them.
In a letter to the board, the researchers suggested that the breakthrough – dubbed Q* and pronounced Q-Star – could let AI “surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks” …
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed a fresh complaint against Apple, accusing the company of a fourth example of illegal union-busting.
The first Apple Store workers to unionize were denied employee benefits offered to other staff in the same store, in what the NLRB alleges was a (failed) attempt to influence a unionization vote at a second store …
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The iPhone 15 has proven hugely popular in Samsung’s home market of South Korea, says a new report today.
Market intelligence figures suggest that launch sales of the new iPhone line-up were more than 40% higher than those of last year’s iPhone 14 series …
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While Windows laptop users like to think they have their own version of Touch ID, it appears not to offer the same level of security. The Windows Hello fingerprint authentication system on the top three laptops to use it has been put to the test by security researchers – and all three failed.
To be fair, the team was carrying out the penetration tests at the request of Microsoft – but it was a Microsoft Surface product that turned out to be easiest to bypass …
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Amid all the OpenAI drama, the team has still been doing some work, it seems! The company’s newly-reinstated co-founder Greg Brockman has just tweeted that ChatGPT Voice is rolling out to everyone, not just paying subscribers …
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