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.
An official government report has concluded that the Trump-era Department of Justice (DOJ) did not obtain the required authorizations before demanding customer call and message data from Apple and others.
It also failed to obtain authorization from the Attorney General before imposing a gag order on Apple, preventing it from disclosing the fact that it had been forced to hand over the personal data …
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Apple’s UK investment exceeds £18B ($23B) over the past five years, and the company says that it now supports over 550,000 direct and indirect jobs.
CEO Tim Cook said Apple had been serving UK customers for more than 40 years, and now has 40 retail stores in the country …
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Apple Originals have this year notched up a total of nine Golden Globe nominations, including Slow Horses for Best Drama.
No fewer than seven actors have picked up outstanding performance nominations across four different shows, with winners set to be announced on January 5 …
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Apple actually built a working cellular MacBook as a prototype all the way back in 2007, and Bloomberg reports that the company may finally release one using its own radio chip.
Steve Jobs was not sold on the idea at the time, for two reasons, but neither of those would apply today. So 18 years later, is it finally time … ?
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Vision Pro is gadget of the year, according to Popular Science. The device was also the magazine’s pick as overall innovation of the year.
PopSci acknowledges the “massive price tag” of Apple’s spatial computer, but says that it represents the first step in a new direction for the company …
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Thousands of CSAM victims are suing Apple for dropping plans to scan devices for the presence of child sexual abuse materials.
In addition to facing more than $1.2B in penalties, the company could be forced to reinstate the plans it dropped after many of us pointed to the risk of misuse by repressive regimes …
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A newly-released app lets you regularly scan your iPhone for Pegasus spyware – which can access almost all the data on a phone – for a one-off cost of just one dollar.
A mobile security firm created the app, which allows you to scan your iPhone or Android phone and send the results to them for analysis – and they’ve so far detected seven phones infected by the spyware …
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Apple has been granted another patent for technology that would allow it to have Face ID embedded in the display, enabling the company to reduce the size of the camera cutout.
While Apple has been working on this for many years, there are a couple of reasons to suspect that the tech may perhaps debut in the iPhone 17 line-up …
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A wide-ranging interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals him (kind of) denying OpenAI rumors; addressing the potential conflict between the power requirements of AI and Apple’s environmental goals; the journey toward Apple Glasses; and how Apple’s greatest legacy may be saving lives.
Cook kicks off by denying that Apple was late to AI, pointing out that the company first built a neural engine into its products back in 2017 …
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Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says a HomePod with display now won’t launch until the third quarter of next year. He’d initially expected it to be launched in the first half of 2024, then said it had been pushed back to the first half of 2025.
The reason for the latest delay, he says, is that software development for the new device is taking longer than expected …
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Apple is known for playing hardball when it comes to negotiations, but it seems the Indonesian government is capable of giving as good as it gets.
The country banned the sale of the iPhone 16, saying the Cupertino company hadn’t invested enough in the local economy. Apple responded by offering to increase its manufacturing spend from $10M to $100M, but Indonesia now says it expects a billion dollars – and it wants the investment agreed within a week …
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We’ve been hearing reports of a folding iPhone for a great many years now, and the most recent of these suggest that it may finally arrive in late 2026.
There are two approaches Apple could take with this product, and so far we haven’t seen a consensus view as to which would be better …
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British developers have been told that their billion dollar class action lawsuit against Apple can proceed, after the iPhone maker failed in its second bid to have the case dismissed.
Developers behind the antitrust case are seeking repayment of up to £785M ($995M) in commission on apps, in the latest move against Apple’s monopoly on the sale of iPhone apps …
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The three best-selling smartphones in the world last quarter were all last year’s iPhones, with two older Samsung models taking 4th and 5th place, according to a new market intelligence report.
The world’s best-selling smartphone in Q4 2024 was the base model iPhone 15, capturing 3% of the total global smartphone market …
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It was recently reported that the iPhone 17 Pro chassis would be aluminum rather than titanium. This would mean Apple dropping something it touted as a major selling point of the Pro models just last year.
A leaker with a decent track record is now disputing this, however, saying that Apple will “of course” stick to titanium for next year’s premium models – though the dispute could all be down to ambiguous terminology …
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Growing concerns have been expressed that the Sonos app might in future require a subscription, as the company reported revenue down for the second year running – and a former employee has now added fuel to the fire.
Of particular concern is that all actions initiated in the app now go through a Sonos server, rather than being executed locally, giving the company complete control of everything users do …
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An Apple patent has revealed that future iPhones could effectively get multiple Action buttons, as all three buttons on the left side of the phone become user-configurable.
The same patent indicates that similar capabilities may come to other Apple devices, including both iPads and Macs …
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Apple has sponsored a 300-foot high Wallace & Gromit animation, which is being projected daily onto the walls and chimneys of Battersea Power Station, home to the company’s UK headquarters.
A set of eight iPhone 16 Pro Max models was used to create the 6,000-frame stop-motion animation, which will be on display every night until new year’s eve …
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A law enforcement agency has said that both Instagram and TikTok are increasingly being used to recruit money mules, who are either knowingly or unknowingly helping criminal gangs to launder money.
Those caught face prison sentences of up to 14 years, and are also likely to be banned from holding or opening a bank account …
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Apple has increased its iPad trade-in values, with iPad Pro models seeing a $35 increase in the maximum value possible.
However, all other models have seen the upper limit on their trade-in values increased by just $5 …
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Things haven’t exactly been going to plan with TSMC’s Arizona chip plants, but the company is claiming that the second plant could be making 2nm chips in the US as early as 2028. Previously announced plans talked only of 3nm chips by this date.
However, the Taiwanese government acknowledges that 2nm chip production in Arizona could be delayed to 2029 or 2030 …
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A mistake saw British iPhone users yesterday receive a range of severe weather alerts, one of them citing “severe high temperatures” of 39F (4C). Some of the alerts warned of a “significant threat to life” …
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Note: This report contains links to reports about teenage suicides
Australia has followed France in imposing a social media ban for kids, and other countries are expected to follow. The French government is now pushing for an EU-wide ban.
Social media platforms are of course pushing back as they face losing a demographic seen as key to their future, and questions are being raised about how the ban will be enforced …
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will now be going after more scammers after it closed a significant loophole in the law.
The agency says the expanded scope of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) will be of particular benefit to seniors, who disproportionately fall victim to fake tech support calls …
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