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.
Microsoft Surface ARM laptops powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chip claim to match or beat Apple Silicon machines. Tests show that they (mostly) beat the MacBook Air, but not last year’s MacBook Pro models.
Comparative benchmark tests do reveal that the chip offers extremely impressive performance, leaving both Intel and AMD behind …
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Epic Games has accused Apple of deliberately delaying its attempt to launch its own iOS games store in Europe, and has raised it as a potential antitrust issue with the EU.
The Fortnite developer said that Apple was rejecting its app because the iPhone maker considered the Install and In-app Purchases labels and buttons too similar to those used in its own App Store …
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Device identifiers found in backend code could potentially identify four upcoming new iPads, ranging from an 11th-gen iPad with an A16 chip through to a 13-inch iPad Pro with an M5 chip.
It should be noted that actually identities and specs of the devices are informed speculation, and there is one oddity in the mix …
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Mt Gox customers will finally get some bitcoin back, a full decade after a large-scale theft led to the company announcing that it had almost no crypto left and filing for bankruptcy …
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If you’re finding that your Kindle won’t download books from your library, it’s not just you. It’s an Amazon bug that the company says may take another day or so to fix.
Update: The company was able to fix it faster than expected …
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Meta Quest’s attempts to compete with Vision Pro using a headset costing a fraction of the price continues.
We reported last month that the company was experimenting with freeform window placement in an attempt to match the flexibility of visionOS, and Mark Zuckerberg has today shown-off the latest version of this, with six windows …
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Apple Intelligence privacy is stronger than that of any other AI company, but even its security protections aren’t perfect once ChatGPT gets involved.
That’s the argument made by the security chief at Inrupt, the privacy-focused company co-founded by the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee …
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An attacker has obtained the phone numbers of 33 million users of the popular 2FA security app Authy, exposing them to an increased risk of phishing attacks.
Developer Twilio has confirmed the claim, and asked customers to take two precautions …
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We’re of course all eagerly awaiting the iOS 18 headline feature to hit the betas: Apple Intelligence. But sometimes the little things really count.
Steve Jobs famously said that design is not just how things look, but how they work. Jony Ive added that one hallmark of great design is when it looks stunningly obvious after it’s been done – and Apple just gave us two tiny but beautiful examples …
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The Life in Seven Songs podcast has been named by Apple as a top new show, and the latest episode sees the company’s former design chief Jony Ive talk about his background, and the joy and pain of working for the company …
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Right to repair compliance checks carried out in New York have revealed that many products covered by the law do not appear to be in compliance.
Three Apple products were checked, gaining scores ranging from A right the way through to F, suggesting that the company is not in full compliance with right to repair legislation in the state …
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A developer who asked Figma AI to help him design a weather app says that it just copied Apple’s own Weather app every time.
Update: See Figma response, below …
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Some Wise customer data was likely to have been obtained by the hackers behind the Evolve data breach back in May.
Multiple additional fintech firms may also be affected by the cybersecurity attack, and it’s possible that personal data may be leaked if companies refuse to give in to ransom demands …
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Tubi’s UK launch is set to happen later today, the free streaming video service offering Brits access to more than 20,000 movies and TV episodes from major studios like Disney and Sony …
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Apple appears to be expecting iPhone 16 sales to substantially outstrip those for last year’s model. A new supply-chain report says that the company has boosted its A-series chip order from TSMC by 10 million.
However, suggestions from some quarters that Apple has changed its chip strategy this year, giving all four iPhone models the same chip, are misleading …
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One of the big questions around Apple’s AI plans has been whether the company would absorb the costs of these features, or charge a fee, aka an Apple Intelligence+ subscription.
So far, the news is that there will be no additional costs involved – but it appears that may change in the future …
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Update: AT&T customers are being offered a credit – see the end of the piece
A major international roaming outage is causing lost mobile connectivity for Americans around the world. The problem is affecting all three major US carriers – AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.
Some are speculating that the problem may have been caused by a mistake made during work to change the way that carriers support legacy data standards …
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See Vision Pro update at the end of the piece.
When asked why Apple Intelligence won’t be available on older iPhones, the company has so far said that the chips simply weren’t sufficiently powerful to provide a good experience. Responses would take too long on older chips.
But many have said that if their phones weren’t up to the task, why not just use Apple Intelligence servers – aka Private Cloud Compute? After all, that’s what already happens with a lot of Siri requests today. We now have an answer to this …
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In-store Vision Pro demos are reportedly set to see two big changes this month, as Apple seeks to increase the wow factor and boost the appeal of the device.
The first is that customers will be given the opportunity to view their own photos on the headset, something Apple hopes will have a bigger emotional impact than viewing stock ones …
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The idea that iPhone 16 Pro display brightness will further improve on last year’s models is gaining ground, with a third report emerging today.
Specifically, it says that leading display supplier Samsung will be providing its most advanced OLED panels yet for three phone models this year …
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The in-app subscription market continues to grow, according to a new report, despite increasing consumer fatigue with the trend to turn everything into a recurring payment. Surprisingly, the most common subscription model is reportedly now a weekly one.
The switch from buying apps outright to paying for them on a subscription basis has been one of the biggest trends over the past 5-10 years – and one of the most controversial …
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a new rule, under which carriers will have to unlock your iPhone or Android smartphone within 60 days of activation.
The proposal is intended to increase competition by making it easier for consumers to switch carriers …
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The decision to withhold Apple Intelligence from EU countries amounts to a “stunning open declaration” of anticompetitive behavior, according to the bloc’s vice-president and competition regulator Margrethe Vestager.
Vestager made her remarks when speaking at a conference convened to discuss new ideas for strengthening the European Union …
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Vision Pro pre-orders open today in five more countries, just as the first customers in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore take delivery of theirs.
Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the UK will be able to pre-order the spatial computer later today, and take delivery in a fortnight’s time …
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