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.
Twitter encrypted DMs have officially launched – but only between paid users, and the security feature doesn’t yet live up to Musk’s promise to use end-to-end (E2E) encryption for full privacy.
The company acknowledges this in a support document, and even Musk himself says you shouldn’t trust it …
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Update: After being out of stock for seven months due to the company being unable to keep up with demand, Nomad says the bands are now available once more.
The Nomad Titanium Band got a refresh, with a much neater magnet-assisted snap closure mechanism, a more streamlined design, and a coating designed to improve durability …
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Uber’s ambition to transform itself from a ride-hailing service to a “travel super app” has seen the company branch out into Uber flight bookings, for both domestic and international flights …
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One of the Twitter hackers who hijacked the official Apple account, as well as those belonging to around 130 high-profile figures, has now pleaded guilty.
British citizen Joseph O’Connor has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of computer intrusion, extortion, stalking, wire fraud, and money laundering – and faces up to 20 years in prison …
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Children’s use of social media may have both positive and negative impacts, but parents and other caregivers should ensure they remain watchful, says a new health advisory.
The American Psychological Association (APA) has made 10 recommendations to reduce the risks of harm, several of them being to better educate children about the issues they may encounter …
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Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak (aka Woz) has said that the march of AI cannot be stopped – even though he has called for a pause in development – and that we must prepare ourselves for people abusing it to create harder-to-spot scams …
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CEO Brian Chesky has said in a new interview that a number of the changes Airbnb has made – including Airbnb Rooms and a complete reorganization of the company’s structure – were inspired by Apple.
He added that the launch of Airbnb Rooms represents the company returning to its roots: letting people rent out a room in their home, rather than an entire apartment …
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US iPhone market share increased in the first quarter of the year, despite the fact that the smartphone market as a whole suffered a major decline, according to new market intelligence data.
It indicates that US smartphone shipments fell sharply in the first quarter of the year, with two main factors cited …
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Elon Musk has announced a purge of inactive accounts, saying that unused Twitter handles will be made available for reuse. As is generally the case, the details are as yet unknown (including to Musk, probably) …
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Global tablet shipments are now below pre-pandemic levels, says a new market intelligence report, as part of a “severe” cutback in consumer spending.
Apple wasn’t immune to this, with Q1 shipments falling 17% year-on-year, but the data shows the iPad still remains unchallenged as the market leader, in both the short and long term …
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There were initially conflicting reports on whether the periscope lens would be coming to both iPhone 15 Pro models, or just the iPhone 15 Pro Max. The consensus view has for some time been pointing to the top-end model only, and a reliable leaker now says they have obtained “independent confirmation” of this.
This means that if you’re looking for a big step-up in optical zoom on the telephoto lens, you’ll need to brace your wallet for an iPhone 15 Pro Max purchase …
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Next year’s iPhone 16 Pro models will have the largest iPhone screens ever, according to Ross Young, a display analyst with a solid track record. These models have also been reported to drop the notch in favor of under-screen Face ID.
While Young didn’t initially specify the precise sizes, when one Twitter user rounded up Ross’s figures to one significant digit, he replied that this was “close” …
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An iPhone 14 Pro versus Samsung S23 Ultra camera battle concludes that there’s no clear winner, with the choice depending on the type of photos you want to take.
But given that it was a close-run thing mostly because of Samsung’s 10x telephoto lens versus Apple’s 3x one, it certainly suggests that the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro Max will be a clear winner …
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There’s been much speculation about Apple AI plans, as the Cupertino company has so far kept a low profile while both Google and Microsoft dive into generative artificial intelligence in a big way. CEO Tim Cook didn’t shed much light when asked about it last week, saying only that AI is “certainly interesting” but there are “a number of issues with the tech.”
The seriousness of those issues is very much in debate. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak last month joined leading AI academics in calling for a pause in advanced AI development – but two AI pioneers have markedly different views about the risks …
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Apple CEO Tim Cook last week pointed to emerging markets like India as the solution to flattening growth rates in mature markets like the US and Europe. One way of kick-starting growth in new markets, suggests Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, would be for Apple to sell an older iPhone SE for the local equivalent of $199.
This would effectively be following in the footsteps of the $199 Apple Watch Series 3, which Apple retained on sale long beyond the point at which it made sense to buy one …
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By this point, it was already a near-certainty that Apple had canceled plans for the anticipated solid-state iPhone 15 Pro volume buttons. However, if we needed any further convincing, it arrived in the form of a shareholder letter yesterday.
A company that had been expected to produce one of the components needed for solid-state buttons last year hinted at an order from Apple – and yesterday effectively announced the cancellation of this project …
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has already supported claims of illegal Apple union-busting tactics, and now two members of Congress have said that this appears to be a recurring pattern.
Democratic representatives Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) and Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) have jointly written to the NLRB asking for a wider investigation into Apple’s response to the growing unionization movement within its retail stores …
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Whether you are for or against the unionization of Apple’s retail stores, I think few would begrudge the staff many of the things they are seeking. But the call for Apple Store tips strikes me as unrealistic, unreasonable, unpopular, distracting, and likely to prove counterproductive.
The full list of things Apple Store workers are seeking is lengthy, but I think most of us could get behind the five main asks …
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While we might be all about our iPhones, Nokia is selling tens of thousands of its dumbphones each month – with Gen Z leading the charge toward a simpler, less distracting device.
This is despite the fact that Gen Z are referred to as “digital natives,” having grown up with smartphones from their early years …
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Therapy apps are proving increasingly popular, as people seek help with their mental health without the inconvenience and high cost of in-person counseling. But for the second year running, researchers have found that the majority of them are failing to meet expected privacy standards.
Of 32 mental health apps studied, some 19 of them were labeled as “privacy not included,” with the researchers stating they were shocked at how bad they were …
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AAPL Q2 2023 earnings will be announced at 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. EDT today, and while the company hasn’t offered specific guidance, it has warned that it expects a year-on-year decline of around 5%.
Wall Street agrees, with analysts expecting a drop from last year’s record $97.3B – but Apple is expected to demonstrate its own continued confidence in the stock through a large buyback announcement …
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Apple trade-in values certainly don’t match what you’ll get from selling privately, but they do offer a safe and painless way to upgrade to a new device. The company has today updated the amounts offered, with a mix of increases and decreases (and some unchanged sums).
In the case of the iPhone increases, the differences range from $10 to $30. The maximum trade-in available now for an iPhone is $630, while the minimum is just $40 …
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A UK antitrust case against Apple has once again been thrown out, after an appeal tribunal ruled that the original decision was correct – that the UK’s competition watchdog had missed a legal deadline.
The ruling stands despite the fact that two Apple App Store policies were found to be anticompetitive, and even though the tribunal appeared to agree that its own decision was likely to have “undesirable or unfortunate results” …
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Chipmaker AMD claims that its new laptop chip, the Ryzen 7840U, can outperform Apple’s M2 chip – though it provides no proof of this. The chip is destined to be used in upcoming laptops from Acer, Framework, HP, Lenovo, and Razer.
No benchmarks are provided by AMD to support its claims, and there’s no information on battery life, which is another major strength of Apple’s M-series chips …
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