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.
Leaked documents reveal that Cellebrite can’t unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 and later, at least as of the date of publication (April 2024). The company has confirmed that the documents are genuine.
Cellebrite devices, which are widely used by law enforcement agencies, can crack most Android phones, though there are exceptions …
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I remember being intrigued the first time I saw the Beeline Velo, with its unusual approach to navigation. Instead of showing you a moving map, it just displays an arrow pointing either directly to your destination, or to your next waypoint on a route.
At the time, I was using a Garmin on my bicycles, but once I switched to mounting my iPhone on my handlebars, that created the question of which app to choose …
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Apple isn’t the only company preferring a privacy-respecting on-device approach to artificial intelligence: Tinder AI processing will use the same approach to pick your most attractive photos for use in the dating app …
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TikTok has lost its fight to be excluded from a European antitrust law, and says that it will comply. However, it still faces a potential ban in the EU for breaching child protection legislation, and a separate ruling on its future in the US has yet to be made …
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Apple has announced the launch of a new Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, intended to help the creation of more affordable homes in and around San Francisco.
It’s the latest phase of the company’s multi-year initiative to help tackle the California housing crisis, which has seen many locals priced out of the areas in which they grew up …
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Apple has reportedly commissioned one of its Vietnamese suppliers, Sunny Optical, to provide a new MacBook compact camera module (CCM) from next year. This is likely to be first used in an M5 MacBook Pro in late 2025.
It’s a somewhat surprising move, given that Apple had to cancel iPhone lens orders from the same company due to production problems …
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Apple Wallet now supports the Presto transit card used in Ontario, Canada. The card can be used for travel in Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa.
The digital version of the card includes the Express Transit Pass feature, meaning that you can tap in and out without having to authenticate …
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A number of tech giants, including Apple, trained AI models on YouTube videos without the consent of the creators, according to a new report today.
They did this by using subtitle files downloaded by a third party from more than 170,000 videos. Creators affected include tech reviewer Marquees Brownlee (MKBHD), MrBeast, PewDiePie, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Jimmy Kimmel …
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Apple yesterday returned to being the most valuable company in the world, after a new record high saw the company valued at $3.62T.
AAPL stock jumped 2.5% in just one day after Morgan Stanley pointed to the company’s AI work, and named it a ‘top pick’ …
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Reports of the iPhone 17 having a 2nm chip in the two Pro models have been disputed by a leaker with a respectable track-record. They say that Apple’s first 2nm processor will instead be used in the iPhone 18.
Citing inside information they claim to have about TSMC’s forecast production capacity, they suggest that 2nm chips won’t enter production until the end of 2025 – which would be too late for the iPhone 17 …
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A statement reveals that the FBI accessed the locked phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter at the Trump rally. There were unconfirmed reports that the device was an iPhone, but it was subsequently revealed to be a Samsung device.
The FBI said on Sunday that attempts to access the phone had not been successful, but just one day later stated that it has now succeeded …
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The Department of Energy has announced that it is funding 1,000 battery drop-off points across the US, where people will be able to hand in not just batteries but also smartphones and other electronic devices which are no longer worth anything on the resale or trade-in market …
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Both Counterpoint Research and IDC have published their latest estimates of the global smartphone market, each showing that Apple is lagging behind.
The worldwide smartphone market as a whole grew by around 6% in Q2, while iPhone shipments were roughly flat year-on-year …
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More details are coming to light about the AT&T hack, which saw the personal data of around 110M customers compromised – including records of who they called and texted.
It’s reported that the carrier made a Bitcoin ransom payment in return for the hacker deleting the data, and that public disclosure of the security breach was delayed for two months in response to a request from the FBI …
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A long-standing Signal encryption key vulnerability in the company’s desktop apps is finally being fixed. The fix will fully secure the Mac app, but the company will only be able to offer a compromise solution for the Windows version …
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While Twitter verification was intended to confirm the identity of public figures, X verification is available to anyone who takes out a paid subscription to the service – and the European Union has decided that breaks the law …
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A massive AT&T data breach has seen hackers able to steal the personal data of almost every customer the company has – a total of some 110 million Americans.
In an incredible security fail, the stolen data includes not only customer phone numbers, but also records of who contacted whom – a potential privacy minefield …
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The flow of Vision Pro apps dropped dramatically after an initial flurry at launch, says a new report, with many top iOS developers yet to bring their apps to the platform.
The spatial computer is battling the Catch-22 of not having a killer app to drive sales, and therefore not having a large enough market to attract developers …
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Vision Pro is available today in Apple stores in five more countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK.
The global rollout of the spatial headset kicked off on June 14, with pre-orders opening in three countries …
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Health and fitness tracking is the primary pitch of the Apple Watch, but has the time now arrived for the option of a more compact device in the form of an Apple Ring?
Samsung yesterday unveiled its Galaxy Ring, which collects health data (including sleep tracking), in a device with a claimed battery life of seven days …
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Apple trade-in values in the US have been reduced for some devices, but most of the cuts are relatively small. For iPhone 14 models, for example, the reduction is either $10 or $20.
The biggest cuts are for Macs, where the worst case is a $90 reduction in the case of the iMac …
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Market intelligence company IDC has been monitoring US Vision Pro sales, and says the current data indicates they will plummet by 75% this quarter.
The firm believes the device won’t achieve 500k sales in its first year, and that only the launch of a cheaper model can drive growth …
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Apple has warned a significant number of iPhone users across 98 countries that they appear to have been targeted by “mercenary spyware attacks” which could compromise almost all the personal data on their devices.
The company says it can never be 100% certain in its conclusions, but has a high degree of confidence that it is correct, and urges message recipients to take the security warning seriously …
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A previously unreported lawsuit regarding hidden cameras in Airbnb properties reveals that the company generated 35,000 support tickets by customers complaining about surveillance devices …
See company response at the end
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