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.
Apple has enjoyed a rare App Store antitrust win, as a Chinese court dismissed a lawsuit accusing it of charging excessive commissions.
The iPhone maker is facing an onslaught of antitrust legislation and lawsuits around the world, most notably surrounding the App Store …
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A new report says that iOS 18 Siri features will include a better contextual understanding of things like people, companies, events, and locations.
A new ‘catch-up’ feature is also said to be included in the AI feature-set, where you can ask Siri to bring you up to speed on notifications you’ve received while away from your phone …
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Hands-on reviews of the new Vision Pro Marvel app What if…? are in, and are best described as mixed.
One reviewer said that it was “maybe the best hour I’ve spent on the device since I got it,” while another described it as a “flimsy” and “meh” experience. Both, however, were upbeat about the future potential …
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Meta is offering teenagers a strengthened version of its Instagram Limits tool. When set to its highest level, only Close Friends will be able to comment, reply, tag, mention, or message them.
It’s the latest development in the company’s protections for teens, after anti-grooming blocks and nudity blurring introduced earlier in the year …
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Japan’s Individual Number Card – also known as My Number Card – is coming to Apple Wallet, a first for official identity documents outside of the US.
The country clearly expects residents to take some time to get used to the idea: It’s being announced around a year ahead of its rollout next spring …
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The Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone 15 is the latest iteration of a product the company has been offering for around a decade now.
The battery case claims to extend the battery life of an iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, or iPhone 15 Pro Max by 50% – but in my testing, did better than that …
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The controversial practice of parts pairing has been banned in right to repair legislation in Colorado, following a similar ban in Oregon back in March.
Apple has come under fire on a number of fronts for the practice, which can make it difficult or even impossible to carry out repairs using parts cannibalised from scrapped devices …
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The Internet Archive, best known for its Wayback Machine, says that it has been under a sustained distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack for several days. The non-profit says that it is in contact with the attackers, though their motivation is as yet unclear …
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It looks like the next Apple antitrust battle will take place in India, as the country prepares its own competition law, which is closely modelled on Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). We learned last week that Japan is also close to implementing its own version of the DMA.
It’s the DMA which has required Apple to permit third-party App Stores, as well as give iPhone users a proactive choice of web browser …
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The Apple Store TRX, the company’s first ever retail store in Malaysia, has been one of the worst-kept secrets in Kuala Lumpur – but is now finally official.
Apple has revealed that the store opens at 10am on June 22, and is offering wallpaper to celebrate the funky design …
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Plans for the rollout of the next-gen CarPlay don’t seem to be going too well. Despite Porsche being announced as one of the first companies in line to support it, the company has implied that its first hybrid Porsche 911 won’t include it.
The German sports car maker says that the $164k 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS will see CarPlay “integrated more deeply into the vehicle,” but went on to imply that this doesn’t mean it will be the next-generation experience Apple first announced almost two years ago …
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Update: A US court has fast-tracked the appeal, which will be heard in September. TikTok owner Bytedance has just three weeks to file its arguments for the ban to be overturned.
Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, is suing the US government, arguing that the threatened ban is unconstitutional. The company had previously said it would do so, though it had been unclear whether it would follow through.
The company is fighting a law which forces it to either sell the app to an American company, or be banned from operating in the US …
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Mark Gurman reported over the weekend that customizing iOS app icons will be one of the new features we can expect to see in iOS 18.
On the face of it, that seems a relatively minor cosmetic change, but I think it does open the door to using it in rather an impactful way …
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University of Michigan researchers have today shared some initial findings from the Apple Hearing Study launched back in 2019 – one of the largest studies of tinnitus ever carried out.
The data will help us gain a better understanding of the causes of the condition, in which sufferers experience a constant perception of sound, ranging from high-pitched tones to white noise, as well as methods of mitigating the impact of the condition …
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Apple has reportedly given the green light to its three OLED panel suppliers to begin mass production of three of the four iPhone 16 displays.
However, the Cupertino company is seemingly not yet satisfied with test production of displays for the iPhone 16 Pro Max …
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Falling sales led Apple to offer significant official iPhone discounts in China, and a new report today suggests that this tactic is paying off.
Official government data indicates that Apple successfully turned around its declining sales in the country, with shipments bouncing back with a 52% increase last month …
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If you’re looking for an iPhone wireless mic, there’s no shortage of options out there, ranging from the cheap-and-cheerful to the sophisticated. The Saramonic Blink 500 B2+ aims to bridge the gap between the two – and in my view, succeeds.
For around half the price of similar systems from Røde and DJI, you get a twin-mic setup that connects to standalone cameras, Macs, iPads, iPolder iPhones with a Lightning socket, and current iPhones with a USB-C port …
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An unreleased iPod Tetris game has been found on a prototype of a 3rd-gen model, controlled by the scroll wheel …
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Mark Gurman’s latest newsletter suggests that Apple may choose to label the AI features in iOS 18 as a beta or preview, similar to the way the company labelled Siri when it launched.
Gurman’s piece has a lot of impressive details about Apple’s plans for iOS 18, from customizable icon colours to AI-generated personal emoji. But it also contains a criticism I feel is unwarranted …
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The price you’ll pay Apple for MacBook Pro leather cases has varied widely over the years, but with its anti-leather kick, the closest you’ll get to a leather case on apple.com is a “vegan leather” one from von Holzhausen.
On the plus side, that has brought the price down well below Apple’s leather years. For the 16-inch MacBook Pro, for example, the case costs a comparatively affordable $99.95. But while I respect Apple’s stance on the topic, for me there’s no substitute for real leather …
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A new supply-chain report suggests that we can expect Apple to release an OLED iPad mini in 2026, and that the iPad Air will also be upgraded to OLED within the same timeframe.
It says that Samsung has already started developing samples of displays intended to be used in what would be a significant upgrade to the most bijou of the iPad line-up …
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We reported last year on an intriguing patent for an ‘Apple pebble’ device, which appeared to be intended as some kind of Vision Pro accessory.
Now the company has applied for a new patent on what appears to be another take on the tiny mysterious device …
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Security researchers report that a key element of Apple Location Services contains what they call “a really serious privacy vulnerability” that allowed troop movements to be tracked.
The issue could also allow an attacker to work out the location of anyone using a mobile wifi router, such as those in RVs, and travel routers sometimes used by business travellers …
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Uber surge pricing is supposed to be applied to especially busy times and places, when riders may prefer paying a substantial premium to not being able to get a ride at all. But drivers are claiming that Uber now effectively applies this pricing model all the time – and keeps most of the difference …
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