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’re expecting the iPhone 17 Air to be Apple’s thinnest ever phone, but with the depth of phones now constrained by the USB-C port, would you go portless to get a thinner iPhone?
Chinese Android smartphone maker Oppo has been teasing an ultra-thin model, and saying that the height of the USB-C port is preventing phones from getting any slimmer …
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A judge has limited FBI powers to trawl through data obtained from tech giants like Apple, Google, and ISPs under FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act).
Separately, a Cloudflare privacy flaw has been identified in one of Apple’s IT service providers, which could have exposed the rough location of millions of web and app users before it was fixed …
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China’s DeepSeek – an AI chatbot intended to rival ChatGPT – is currently the number one download in the App Store, after its performance took US companies by surprise.
The Chinese startup appears to be rivalling the performance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT despite having cost far less to develop, and that’s hitting the market valuations of major US AI players …
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One of the big questions about the upcoming iPhone SE 4 is whether the display will have a notch or Dynamic Island. Two leakers have presented clashing views on this, with the latest dummy models appearing to support the notch. Update: See Ross Young’s input at the end.
The dummy models also give us our clearest view yet of what the new entry-level iPhone may look like, with high-quality photos, and a video …
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Apple Watch bands are safe to wear, says the company, after concerns were expressed about the presence of PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances) in a number of smartwatch bands.
PFAS has been linked to a number of health concerns, and is known as a “forever chemical” as it doesn’t break down in the body or the environment …
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Scheduled Threads posts are now available to all, after the company first began rolling it out to a small number of users last month. Additionally, users in a few countries can now highlight and annotate parts of other people’s posts when sharing them …
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The newly-launched Samsung Galaxy S25 copied more than a dozen iPhone features, argues Macworld, pointing to everything from the slab-sided design to Siri’s glowing border.
The piece acknowledges that both companies copy from each other, but suggests that Samsung is a little less subtle in its approach …
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Apple commentator John Gruber yesterday described Siri’s current performance as “an unfunny joke,” giving its inability to correctly name the winner of Super Bowl 13 an example, noting that this is a basic query that any US chatbot ought to be able to answer.
It turns out that wasn’t an entirely random example: it was prompted by his friend Paul Kafasis, who decided to test Siri on Super Bowl 1 to 60 inclusive – and the results were not good …
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The never-ending saga of the TikTok ban continues, with a ByteDance board member suggesting that a compromise would be possible.
The remark was made by William E. Ford, an American businessman who is one of the directors of parent company ByteDance …
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AI chatbot ChatGPT is down for many users in the US and the UK, with a variety of errors being reported – including gateway errors, login failures, and chats not loading …
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A Subaru security vulnerability allowed millions of cars to be remotely tracked, unlocked, and started. A full year’s worth of location history was available, and was accurate to within five meters …
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More than two dozen subreddits have banned X links, including those with millions of users. Hundreds more of the Reddit groups are currently discussing following suit …
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Used iPhones with TikTok installed on them are being listed for sale on eBay for thousands of dollars, as people try to cash in on the ban. One listing even asks $50,000 for an unlocked iPhone 12 Pro Max “with TikTok app.”
Although Trump has issued an executive order claiming to shield companies from liability for breaking the law, Apple, Google and others continue to comply by keeping TikTok out of their US app stores …
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A judge has ruled that there is a “reasonable possibility” that Apple illegally paid women less than men, meaning that a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 12,000 current and former female employees will proceed.
Apple admits that the pay disparities exist, but claim that these can be justified by the individual circumstances …
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We yesterday got a look at what is claimed to be the iPhone 17 Air camera bump, and the reaction hasn’t been … overly favorable.
While we don’t know for sure that the photo shows the real thing, our own sources indicate that the design depicted is probably accurate …
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We’ve today been given a preview of the gorgeous new Apple Miami Worldcenter store ahead of its opening on Friday morning.
The company has highlighted the store’s “biophilic” design, environmental credentials, accessibility features, and multicultural Latin American influence …
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Philips Hue and other smart bulbs based on the Zigbee standard could soon act as motion sensors without the need for any additional hardware. This would mean they could automatically switch on when someone enters a room without using a separate motion sensor.
Even better, the new functionality looks set to be added to existing Hue bulbs through an update to the Hue Bridge …
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If Ray-Ban Meta glasses are not your style, the company is expected to launch a pair of Oakley smart glasses later this year. These will likely mirror the functionality of Meta’s existing AI glasses, but with very different styling.
The Oakley glasses are reportedly based on the Sphaera model, which is primarily aimed at cyclists and other athletes …
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The Truecaller app has long been able to flag some incoming spam and scam phone calls, enabling you to reject them, but Apple privacy rules prevented the iOS version from working as effectively as the Android one. This means the iPhone would fail to identify many callers that would be flagged on Android phones.
A new Apple API in iOS 18.2 solves the privacy problem, and additionally now allows Truecaller to automatically block known spammers …
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The Indonesian government has said that it expects its iPhone 16 ban to be lifted “within one or two weeks,” but has not explained the basis for this.
The country’s investment minister issued only a rather strangely-worded and somewhat contradictory comment which implied that a deal was close …
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I’ve previously argued that Apple Intelligence could be the biggest reason to buy an Apple smart home camera. Longer term, I think it also has the potential to create a whole new era of truly smart homes.
How long it will take before we can trust Apple Intelligence to run our homes is a whole other question! There’s no arguing with the fact that there’s a long way to go before the AI tech will be more than a public beta. But the longer-term potential does excite me …
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Two of the world’s leading market intelligence firms report that the iPhone has lost its place as the best-selling phone in China, dropping from 1st to 3rd place in the final quarter of last year.
Increased competition from local brands is cited as one factor, the second being Apple’s inability to offer AI features in the country …
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The TikTok ban which came into effect on Sunday has been suspended for 75 days by an executive order signed by President Trump on his inauguration day. He has also said that US companies who provide services to TikTok during this time will not be prosecuted.
However, legal scholars note that Trump’s order does not appear to comply with the law, and say that companies who make TikTok available remain liable for hundreds of billions of dollars of fines, so Apple is unlikely to return the app to the App Store …
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Apple is facing criminal complaints by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which accuses the company of illegally using conflict minerals, also known as “blood minerals.” The terms refer to minerals sourced from illegal sources who employ child labor and use the proceeds to buy weapons for armed conflicts.
The charges have been filed in Belgium and France because those countries have a strong judicial record in corporate accountability cases. Update: Belgium has now opened an investigation – see the end of the piece …
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