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 CEO Tim Cook attended the annual China Development Forum during his visit to the country, taking part in a climate change meeting during it.
Cook has said that meeting environmental goals requires “more innovation,” and that AI is an essential tool for this …
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Floridian kids aged 13 or younger face a social media app ban in Florida, while those aged 14 to 16 will only be allowed to use the apps with parental permission.
Opponents argue that the new law, known as HB 3, will do more harm than good, putting user privacy at risk …
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On the face of it, getting a free premium Telegram subscription direct from the company seems like a pretty sweet deal, giving you access to features like transcribing voice messages into texts. But the price of this particular free deal is way too high …
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Two senators who have received classified TikTok national security briefings say that the information revealed to them has left them “deeply troubled.”
They are calling for the information to be declassified, as they say it is “critically important” that the American people can consider the issues for themselves – especially if they currently use the Chinese-owned app …
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Chinese media is reporting that Apple is buying AI services from local tech giant Baidu. The WSJ had earlier reported that the iPhone maker had been in discussions with the company, to use its AI smarts in iOS 18.
Baudi operates a ChatGPT-style LLM known as ERNIE Bot, which claims to “comprehend human intentions and deliver accurate, logical, and fluent responses approaching human level” …
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One element of the DOJ antitrust lawsuit against Apple addresses iMessage, and Apple’s decision to keep the app exclusive to iPhone. But it goes further than arguing that this is anti-competitive, and attacks the use of green chat bubbles for Android users as creating “social stigma.”
A lawyer commenting on this claim says that it effectively amounts to the Department of Justice complaining that people think the iPhone is cooler than Android phones …
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We noted recently that Apple was beginning to roll-out firmware updates to AirTags. That roll-out was supposed to be a gradual one, completing on April 9 – but that’s not what happened …
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Both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have allowed their music to return to Spotify, some two years after they pulled their entire catalogs in protest at COVID disinformation, and Apple Music trolled the service …
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The EU has today announced that it is not satisfied that Apple’s App Store changes comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the company is now officially under investigation for non-compliance.
If that investigation confirms that Apple failed to comply with the antitrust law, then the iPhone maker could be fined up to 10% of its worldwide turnover – increasing to 20% for repeat infringements …
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After literally years of investigation, the DOJ antitrust lawsuit is finally official. Apple is accused of using a dominant market position to lock in customers, block competitors, profiteer, and stifle new technologies.
The lawsuit mirrors moves made in the EU, most notably through the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which obliges Apple and other tech giants to adopt a less aggressive approach to protecting their own financial interests against competition …
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University researchers have found an unpatchable security flaw in Apple Silicon Macs, which would allow an attacker to break encryption and get access to cryptographic keys.
The flaw is present in M1, M2, and M3 chips, and because the failing is part of the architecture of the chips, there’s no way for Apple to fix it in current devices …
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The DOJ lawsuit is 88 pages long, and I freely confess I haven’t yet finished reading it, but it seems one tech writer has – finding a claim that CarPlay is anticompetitive.
As the piece notes, it seems clear that the Department of Justice doesn’t actually understand what CarPlay is, or how it works, as the claim simply makes no sense …
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A former United Parcel Service (UPS) worker has been accused of stealing $1.3 million worth of Apple products over the course of a decade.
He has been charged with stealing the products from a UPS warehouse in Winnipeg, Canada, and reselling them on the popular classified ad site Kijiji …
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A state-owned newspaper has cited Tim Cook praising China as a production hub, during the CEO’s visit to the country for a new store opening.
Cook’s remarks were made after Apple reported a 13% decline in revenue from China, with a recent market intelligence estimate suggesting that iPhone sales were down 24% in the opening weeks of this year …
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The Parler app – which was removed by Apple after accusations that it was used to plan and facilitate the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – is now back in the App Store. The Android version of the social media app has not yet been accepted back into the Google Play Store.
The company’s new CEO says that the app’s focus on completely unmoderated posts has now changed, though it’s unclear who actually owns and controls the business now …
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The leaker Instant Digital has been busy on Weibo recently, with a series of claims about the upcoming iPad Pro models. One of these was that an iPad announcement would be made on March 26 – but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said that this is “not true.”
Instant Digital does have some track record, including the yellow color update to the iPhone 14, and the matte back glass design of the iPhone 15. However, the account has also been mistaken on a number of predictions, so falls into the hit-and-miss category …
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Tim Cook is in China, attending the opening of the beautiful new Jing’an Apple Store in Shanghai, and meeting with Apple suppliers, developers, and more.
Cook shared photos of his visit on Chinese social media site Weibo, thanking the new store staff and customers for a memorable visit …
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A guy who describes himself as a huge Apple enthusiast and a “designer and tinkerer” has created a painstakingly accurate 3D printed Macintosh Plus.
In what has been described as “Steve Jobs-like attention to detail,” it even boots from (and ejects) a floppy disk, and the monitor remains switched off until the Mac emulator is running and displaying the smiling Mac icon …
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While Microsoft pushes Office 365 subscriptions hard, it has so far retained the option of one-off purchases of new editions – and it has confirmed that this will also be available for Office 2024 for Mac.
The other good news is that we’re expecting the price to be unchanged from Office 2021 for Mac …
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We’ve known for a while that Threads is joining the fediverse, and parent company Meta has now provided a preview of how things will work.
The concept of the fediverse is to network together individual social media platforms, such that you can post once on one of them, and then share your post on other services …
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It was already clear that Apple’s Core Technology Fee would come in for close scrutiny by the EU, but an interview with the bloc’s antitrust chief has revealed that the company could also be headed for trouble with its security warnings about alternative app stores.
While Apple was not directly named, there was little doubt who Margrethe Vestager was referencing when she described such warnings as “unwise” …
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A new supply-chain report says that new technology acquired by Apple’s display suppliers will enable the iPhone 16 bezels to be further reduced in size, in conjunction with the larger displays we’re expecting in the two Pro models.
The same report also claims that Apple could hide the Face ID module beneath the display as early as 2026, though it quickly hedges on this …
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There was once a time when the iPad was one of my most-used devices. And yet, despite currently owning two iPads, I’ve hardly used either of them so far this year, and am not even slightly tempted to upgrade when the upcoming new models are announced.
There are five reasons for that – which have seen my former iPad usage almost entirely replaced by my MacBook Pro and a pair of VR glasses …
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A new Product Security Verified (PSV) label will in future be used to identify smart home devices which meet new industry standards designed to protect against hacking and data breaches.
It’s the latest initiative by the industry alliance behind the Matter standard, of which Apple is a member …
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