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.
An iPhone scam carried out in Iran has reportedly generated around $35M, after celebrities were hired to promote the fake deal. It was made possible because Apple isn’t allowed to sell iPhones in the country.
The man alleged to be behind the scam has been located abroad by Iranian police, who say that he will be extradited back to the country through Interpol …
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AT&T says that the widespread outage which started in the early hours of yesterday morning and later resolved was caused by a software update.
There had earlier been speculation that it might have been the result of a cyber attack, but while there are said to be “no indications of malicious activity” so far, both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating …
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The long-awaited Reddit IPO is finally official, as the company formally notified the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its plans to take the company public on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol RDDT.
Reddit has also revealed that the controversial $60M/year deal to provide access to user-generated content to an AI company was with Google …
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There’s growing recognition of the AI threats we may face as companies push further and faster with artificial intelligence tech. Responding to this, the US Justice Department has appointed its first ever federal law enforcement officer focused on AI …
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The FDA blood glucose measurement statement yesterday seemed, on the face of it, to be bad news for anyone hoping to see the feature in a future Apple Watch.
But while the health agency is absolutely right to take a cautious approach, this doesn’t mean that we should give up hope …
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US iPhone market share continued to rise last month, despite a continued decline in all smartphone sales, according to a new market intelligence report.
The report shows that US smartphone sales for the start of the year continued a long-term downward trend in each new year, with a 45% decline since a peak in 2017 …
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A large-scale AT&T outage across the US has been acknowledged by the carrier, which says it is investigating. However, it says that it currently cannot offer an estimated timeframe for a fix (see update at the bottom).
It is currently unclear whether other carriers are directly affected, or whether users are reporting problems caused by trying to call AT&T numbers …
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When Apple announced its own approach to CSAM scanning, many of us warned that the process used to check for child sexual abuse materials would ultimately be abused by repressive governments to scan for things like political protest plans.
The Cupertino company rejected that reasoning at the time, but in an ironic twist is now using precisely this argument in response to the Australian government …
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Prolific Redditors are to be given preferential access to Reddit shares in the company’s initial public offering (IPO), according to a new report.
The plan would see an as-yet-unknown proportion of the shares set aside for the 75,000 most active Reddit users …
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A new ranking of the top ten best selling phones in the world has found that, for the first time, Apple has taken the top seven slots. The latest ranking is for 2023 as a whole.
It’s not until we reach 5th position that the first of the iPhone 15 line-up puts in an appearance …
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Apple’s new app store terms have come under fire for what many are describing as ‘malicious compliance’ with the EU’s Digital Markets Act – that is, technically complying with the antitrust law while completely negating its intent.
A new report says that both Meta and Microsoft have now lobbied the EU, asking it to reject Apple’s new terms as “onerous” and “prohibitive” …
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Tinder verification will be rolling out in the US, UK, Brazil, and Mexico as the dating app seeks to tackle the growing problem of romance fraud …
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Apple’s chief operating officer Jeff Williams is in Taiwan as a guest of honor for Foxconn’s 50th anniversary celebrations. He’s reportedly joined by his deputy, Sabih Khan.
The rare visit is likely a compromise, enabling the occasion to be marked while CEO Tim Cook continues his policy of avoiding visits to the island …
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The subscription streaming spend of the average American is now close to a thousand dollars per year, according to a new report.
While more than half of subscribers have responded to recent steep price increases by cancelling at least one of their streaming subscriptions, the overall spend keeps rising …
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Samsung smartphone sales in Europe fell by 12% in the final quarter of last year, while iPhones managed to outperform the market. The result was that Apple overtook Samsung smartphone shipments in Europe for the first time in nearly two years.
Market intelligence company Canalys said that while the European smartphone market as a whole declined by 3% year-on-year, and Samsung took a much larger hit, Apple managed to eek out 1% growth …
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A sketchy report claims that development of an Apple smart ring is accelerating, following a teaser by Samsung of its own upcoming Galaxy Ring (shown above).
The Korean report is light on details, citing an unnamed source claiming that “pre-development for commercialization is imminent” …
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A Wyze camera breach allowed some 13,000 customers view footage from other people’s homes. The company had originally said that the serious privacy and security breach had only happened for 14 people.
Wyze says that most of these customers only saw a thumbnail, but that more than 1,500 users saw either a full-size still or a video recording of an event …
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While current and recent iPhones have better water-resistance than older models, they are still susceptible to water damage – and one of the most frequent pieces of advice you’ll find on the Internet is to put a waterlogged iPhone into rice to help it dry out …
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Popular short-form video app TikTok is under investigation in Europe for a range of potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA), including failing to protect the privacy and safety of children.
The company is also accused of putting the mental health of users at risk by deliberately seeking to make the app addictive, and sending people down “rabbit holes” that may lead to the radicalisation of users …
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It’s being reported that a deal has been struck to allow an unnamed large AI company to use Reddit user content for training purposes …
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Friday was the day when the 14-day return period expired for those who bought their spatial computer on day one, and Apple is reportedly taking a keen interest in reasons people give for returning the Vision Pro.
A new report over the weekend didn’t answer the question on everyone’s minds – just what percentage of Vision Pro buyers have returned their devices? – but did shed some light on the reasons for returns …
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Apple has had to make some big changes to accommodate Europe’s Digital Markets Act – even if those changes seem exceedingly unlikely to have gone far enough. But for now, at least, the company is safe from similar antitrust legislation in South Korea …
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The 2025 iPhone SE 4 will see Apple’s entry-level model get an upgrade to an OLED screen, over the LCD one used on all models to date, according to a new supply-chain report.
It says Apple is seeking to minimize the cost of the upgrade by re-using an existing display from an older model, and that it is likely to use the 6.1-inch screen from the iPhone 13 …
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A report by a Chinese blogger with 1.7M followers says that Apple folding screen prototypes failed to pass tests set by the company.
They go on to claim that “the project has been temporarily shelved,” though this is almost certainly a misinterpretation of the most likely position …
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