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.
In what is now an annual tradition, filmmaker Joey Helms has created a stunning iPhone 16 Pro cinematic video demo reel, in his home city of Chicago.
This year he paired up with Sam Perez to mount the new phone on a drone to include airborne shots – and, of course, included some extra-slo-mo footage to highlight the new 120fps 4K capture capabilities …
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I’m a big fan of the Wallet app as a single place to store all my tickets and passes for everything from travel to theater, but not every company directly supports the app.
Passbook is one of a number of apps which allow you to take any existing ticket and import it into the Wallet app, to keep everything together …
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An upcoming premium Ring doorbell subscription will offer 24/7 recording, and AI-powered search, from $19.99 per month.
The Amazon-owned company is also renaming two of its existing subscription tiers, while Ring Protect Pro subscribers will have to choose between upgrading or downgrading …
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Meta’s Threads app may be seeking to further push into the territory occupied by the app formerly known as Twitter, taking on one of Elon Musk’s favorite features.
The feature is known as Loop, and one developer who spotted the reference said that it might be similar to the Communities feature on X, or subreddits …
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The legal status of the free music streaming app Musi has long been unclear – but the matter may now be settled, thanks to a lawsuit the developer has filed against Apple.
Musi sourced its music from YouTube using a method it claims was perfectly legal, while parent company Google disagreed. When the two sides were unable to reach agreement, Apple pulled Musi from its App Store – a move the developer says lacked good cause …
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A new market intelligence report indicates that global Mac shipments fell by 17.5% year-on-year in the previous quarter. That’s against a backdrop of roughly flat sales across all laptops and desktops.
Technically Q3 saw the global PC market achieve a fourth consecutive quarter of growth, as total shipments were up year-on-year, though just barely …
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Followed apparent photos of an M4 MacBook Pro box and a subsequent unboxing video, the unreleased model has now been offered for sale on a Russian classified ads site – at a highly inflated price, naturally.
Multiple units were advertised before the listings were removed, and it does now seem increasingly likely that the leaks are real …
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One of the new features of iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia is iPhone Mirroring – but using this with a personal iPhone on a work Mac currently creates a privacy risk for employees, and a legal risk for businesses.
The problem, as cybersecurity company Sevco discovered, is that apps on the iPhone get treated as Mac apps, and that means their presence is included in corporate IT audits …
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Apple has announced that its next annual Swift Student Challenge will open for submissions in February 2025. You can sign up today to be notified when applications open.
As usual, Apple will select 350 winners, and the top 50 of them will be invited to participate in WWDC in Cupertino in the summer …
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Macworld enjoys its more provocative pieces, the latest of which takes issue not just with the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16, but with the Action button before it.
Those particular views aside, it goes on to argue that a fixed(ish) annual iPhone update cycle forces Apple to launch new phones before it really has enough to offer …
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It was revealed this weekend that Chinese hackers managed to access systems run by three of the largest internet service providers (ISPs) in the US.
What’s notable about the attack is that it compromised security backdoors deliberately created to allow for wiretaps by US law enforcement …
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A MoneyGram hack has seen an attacker obtain the personal data of an unknown number of the company’s 50 million money transfer users.
A separate hack of a debt collection company has seen personal data obtained for more than 200,000 Comcast customers, despite previous assurances that this was not the case …
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It’s no secret that the Apple Intelligence rollout is a gradual one. The first six features are expected to launch at the end of this month, and we’re not anticipating the new version of Siri to properly debut until some point next year.
But one analyst thinks we should temper our expectations further, and that iPhones aren’t going to offer “serious” AI performance until 2026 or 2027 …
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iOS 18.1 will reportedly launch on October 28, and if you own an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16, that’s the date you can expect to get your hands on the first six Apple Intelligence features.
I’ve been using them all in the developer betas, and here are my personal experiences, and the AI features I think are most impressive …
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A Russian YouTuber allegedly provided a first ever unboxing video of an unannounced Mac, and claims to reveal specs for the M4 MacBook Pro we’re expecting Apple to reveal later this month.
Judging the authenticity of the video is a tough call, but it’s not such a challenge to make an informed guess about the likely accuracy of those specs …
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Both the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 15 before it offer the option to limit charging to 80% rather than 100%. The thinking is that many people don’t need the full battery capacity of the device in a typical day, and it reduces wear on the battery, extending its life.
But is the theory backed up by real-world results? A sister site of Macworld decided to collect some data and carry out a statistical analysis to find out …
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I’m very late to the sit-stand desk party, I know. My colleague Jeff Benjamin first made the switch way back in 2016, and Apple did the same for all its Apple Park employees in 2018.
I’d so far been using a large custom-made desk, but there are two reasons that now seemed a good time to make a switch …
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The controversy over MKBHD’s wallpaper app isn’t showing any signs of dying down, but whatever your thoughts on the $50/year subscription, there are plenty of places you can go to download free wallpaper for your Apple devices.
There are both wallpaper-specific sources, as well as stock photography sites offering a huge variety of choices suitable for iPhone, iPad, and Mac …
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The AAPL earnings call for Q4 2024 has been scheduled for October 31, and will give our first official hint about early iPhone 16 sales.
The fiscal quarter covers July to September. Pre-orders for the new iPhone models opened on September 13, with the phones available in Apple Stores from September 20, so launch orders will be included in the iPhone revenue …
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Back in February, I talked about the difficulty of smoothly zooming video footage using the on-screen controls, and said I’d really love a hardware control. The iPhone 16 looked like it might give me what I wanted, with the Camera Control video zoom feature.
Unfortunately, right now, it doesn’t. Using the Camera Control slider to zoom in or out during video shooting is currently so bad it’s unusable …
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Some developers yesterday argued that a change to iPhone contact privacy in iOS 18 made it harder for new social media apps to compete.
But I think they’re wrong, and that the more granular privacy control offered in iOS 18 actually makes it more likely that we’ll be willing to grant contacts access to apps …
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Two of the iPhone 16 designers have spoken on the Cool Hunting Design Tangents podcast, sharing some of the thinking behind the development of the new Camera Control button.
Senior product designer Rich Dinh said that he’s worked on the iPhone since the original model, but they still approach each generation afresh …
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A new version of Oura’s smart ring has been announced, the Oura Ring 4. The new model is slimmer, has recessed sensors for greater comfort, and uses new algorithms to provide more complete and accurate measurements.
The 4th-gen smart ring is also now available in a greater range of sizes, and with a new black finish described as combining a deeper color and improved durability …
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Two Maryland-based iPhone fraudsters who cheated Apple out of $2.5M were handed prison sentences yesterday, and ordered to pay restitution.
One was sentenced to 57 months, the other to 54 months, with the pair ordered to repay a total of a little under $1.5M …
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