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.
There have been a number of reports about the batteries in the iPhone 16 line-up, and a new one corroborates an earlier report of a 5% boost in the iPhone 16 Pro Max battery capacity.
It also supports an earlier report of a gain for the smaller iPhone 16 Pro, though suggests a somewhat larger capacity …
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A “sophisticated and alarming” Mac malware attack is being carried out in the guise of free versions of popular apps like the screen recording utility Loom, cryptocurrency manager LedgerLive, and MMO game Black Desert Online.
It appears to be a well-organized attack, with the fake Mac app offers promoted through a combination of legitimate-looking Google ads and phishing emails …
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Having yesterday tried out the Siri improvements brought to us in iOS 18.1, I next decided to test the Apple Intelligence Writing Tools: Proofreading, rewriting, and summarizing.
Just for fun, I took a recursive approach to the task, and first asked AI to proofread yesterday’s piece …
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The US government is taking potential AI dangers more seriously, following its decision to create an Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) earlier this year, with Apple as a member.
A proposed new law would outlaw the use of deepfakes, and a government body will be carrying out safety checks on the next version of ChatGPT before it is released to the public …
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AAPL Q3 2024 earnings will be revealed by the company later today, and Wall Street expects the company to report modest year-on-year sales growth of 2.3%.
As is now standard, Apple didn’t offer any official revenue guidance for the quarter, but it did reveal back in May some of the things it expected …
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Spotify lyrics were turned into a paid feature after a limited test last year – but the company has now reversed course and made them free for everyone again …
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The first developer beta of the first Apple Intelligence features launched this week, which includes a few early Siri improvements – together with an extremely pretty new interface. Although I’m in the UK, I was able to use this approach to get access.
Since Apple will be calling all the new features a beta when it launches, what we are currently able to test is effectively the very first beta of a beta product – so expectations should be set accordingly …
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The latest version of ChatGPT has been described as “a data hoover on steroids” as a result of its new capabilities (like seeing everything happening on your screen) and extremely loose privacy policy.
While Apple Intelligence will use ChatGPT as a fallback option for queries which cannot be answered by the new Siri, Apple has put in place additional safeguards which will likely make it the safest way to use the chatbot …
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This year’s iPhone 16 Pro colors will include bronze, according to a Weibo post. However, it’s likely this is just another way of labelling a color previously described as “rose.”
The post follows a look at the base model iPhone 16 colors we’re expecting to see this year …
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While the shorthand many are using is that the first Apple Intelligence beta is only available in the US, that’s not quite true. In fact, getting access from other countries is surprisingly easy.
That’s almost certainly by design. Apple is merely wanting the simplicity of sticking to a single language at present, but if you’re willing to live with that, then you can play – though see a note below on access within the EU …
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The iPhone 16 will launch without some of the headline Apple Intelligence features – which are arguably the biggest reason for most to upgrade to the new models.
While Apple is taking an understandably cautious approach here, the company runs the risk of disappointing or confusing its customers …
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Meta has launched AI Studio, a tool which allows Instagram users to create AI versions of themselves. The resulting AI can then chat with your followers on your behalf, an idea which couldn’t possibly go horribly wrong …
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A petition has highlighted a puzzling fact: Find My is available in every country in the world except Korea, and nobody seems to understand why.
While many had assumed this to be a restriction imposed by the South Korean government, officials say that isn’t the case, and it’s Apple which has imposed the ban …
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A federal court has ruled that US Customs and Border Protection agents cannot search smartphones without a warrant.
The ruling didn’t actually help the defendant who brought the case, and only applies to the Eastern District of New York where the case was brought, but may help set a privacy precedent …
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A sports and performance psychologist who has advised the US Olympic team and big-name US sports teams says a simple iPhone exercise can help improve your focus …
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The ongoing battle between the US government and TikTok owner Bytedance continues, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) saying that TikTok collected sensitive user data on a variety of controversial topics …
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A lengthy iCloud Private Relay outage was finally resolved on Sunday morning, according to Apple’s status page – but problems with XCode Cloud remain.
Many users had to disable iCloud Private Relay when the service became slow or completely unusable, with Safari unable to display websites …
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Podcasting is getting tougher for those who don’t already have a significant following, says a new report, as a few big names take most of the cash and get most of the audience.
Recent data shows that the top 25 podcasts reach almost half of regular US listeners, and the top 100 shows reach more than 60% of the total podcast audience. But it also shows that high-profile deals don’t always work out …
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The Apple Car project may be dead, but there’s still a chance we’ll see some Apple tech in cars made by other companies – and a patent application for a way to replace car mirrors with cameras could be an interesting candidate.
Such systems already exist, with camera views shown on dashboard displays, but what Apple wants to do is instead project them onto your windshield …
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Apple has cut iPhone prices in India, following a recent decision by the government to reduce import taxes on smartphones.
The price cuts include the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models, the first time Apple has ever reduced the prices of current premium models in the country …
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Cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt – who runs the HaveIBeenPwned website – predicted that the CrowdStrike failure would set a record as the largest IT outage in history, and the numbers seem to back him up.
Cyber insurance company Parametrix has put together some estimates of the cost of the outage, with healthcare companies worst hit, and airlines not far behind …
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A T-Mobile class action lawsuit has been filed by customers on plans with a lifetime price guarantee. The carrier broke that apparent promise by cancelling legacy plans, and switching them to a more expensive one.
The lawsuit relates to a number of plans sold with the promise that “T-Mobile will never change the price you pay” …
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An Adobe exec is quoted as describing its hidden pricing strategy as being “a bit like heroin.” The remark was revealed when the government released its unredacted complaint, which accuses the company of deliberately making it hard to cancel a Creative Cloud subscription.
The exec acknowledged customer anger at the way the company made its contractual terms hard to understand, but said that improving this would result in “taking a big business hit” …
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We’ve noted the contradictory and hard-to-parse rumors about a new iPhone 17 Slim, with some suggesting it will be the top-end model while more recent reports indicate that it may be less powerful than the Pro models.
The more I read about this device, the more it sounds like Apple may be aiming to get yet another step closer to that vision of “a single slab of glass” – and making another attempt at a strategy it first tried with the 12-inch MacBook …
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