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.
Podcast app Castro has been saved from an uncertain future by its sale to the developer behind the Android podcast app Aurelian, Bluck Apps.
The team promises that it won’t be making any major changes to the app, and that the subscription cost will not be increasing “at this time” …
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A series of explicit Taylor Swift deep fakes have led to lawmakers proposing new legislation to tackle this in a similar way to existing legislation for so-called revenge porn …
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has doubled down on his view that app age verification should be the responsibility of Apple and Google, and not social media companies.
His remarks form part of prepared testimony to Congress, as he and other social media CEOs come under fire for failing to do enough to protect their teenage app users …
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While some may have thought the Epic Games versus Apple battle ended when the US Supreme Court decided the existing App Store ruling would stand, and it would not hear appeals from either side, it quickly became clear that this isn’t the case.
Epic Games has now followed through with its threat to contest Apple’s “bad-faith compliance plan” – which would see the company charge 27% commission on app sales made outside of its own App Store …
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A rather sketchy report claims that Jony Ive tried to persuade Apple to cease making the MacBook Air, leaving a redesigned MacBook Pro as the only portable Mac.
The story comes from Walt Mossberg, who admits that it’s based on a single source within Apple, but says that person was at “a very high level” with exceptional product knowledge …
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Businesses in Japan must keep their floppy disk drives for one more year, before changes to the law finally kick in …
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Reviewers have highlighted nine problems with Vision Pro passthrough – the use of external cameras to project an image of your surroundings.
These issues result from Apple’s attempt to simulate an augmented reality experience in what is actually a virtual reality device …
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The timing of Meta’s announcement of new teen safety measures earlier this week likely wasn’t coincidental: Mark Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs are set to testify to Congress on the topic.
Facebook’s founder will be joined by the chief execs of TikTok, Snap, Discord and X as Congress seeks to determine whether the companies are doing enough to protect teens from harm …
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The latest update to the iOS Yelp app now offers AI-generated summaries of restaurants and other businesses, designed to make it quicker to find the best match …
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Chinese police have raided a counterfeit AirPods factory which was found to be operating on a massive scale. The fraudsters were running three production lines in an operation worth around $23.5M.
The report says police seized more than 114,000 fakes, together with manufacturing tools, spare parts, and packaging …
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Apple’s “malicious compliance” with Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is burning bridges with the very people the company needs to make Vision Pro a success, argues a new editorial.
The piece suggests that Vision Pro’s current market is so small that developers can afford to ignore it – or even ensure their iPad apps can’t run on it – which is something they are more likely to do if they are angered by Apple’s treatment of them …
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Proposed amendments to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) which could ban Apple security updates worldwide are an “unprecedented overreach,” says the Cupertino company.
Apple previously described the planned powers as “a serious and direct threat to data security and information privacy” – not just to British citizens, but to all tech users worldwide …
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Amazon Prime Video has been a free perk for those who subscribe to the ecommerce giant’s free shipping service, but if you’re a US Prime subscriber, things change from today …
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The niche web browser Arc has taken its ‘customize the web’ approach to a new level with Arc Search – an app which aims to be a web browser, search engine, and AI chatbot in one.
It represents the company’s vision of the future of how we’ll search the internet, and will eventually be the company’s only mobile app …
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Apple’s third-party app store announcements – in which the company set out the terms on which it will claim compliance with European antitrust law – was nothing if not confident.
The company’s announcement combined criticism of the law that required it, exceedingly tough requirements on any developer wanting to sell outside the App Store, and warnings intended to deter users from buying their apps anywhere else …
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A letter to the US Director of National Intelligence reveals that the NSA buys personal data which was illegally-obtained from smartphone users through the apps they use.
The open letter was sent by US senator and member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Ron Wyden. He asks US security services to cease this practice, and to purge existing data which was obtained illegally …
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Meta is beefing up protections against grooming of teens on Instagram and Facebook by further limiting who is able to send them direct messages.
The latest measure builds on a previous Instagram protection, based on who teenagers follow in the app …
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Both in-app ads and push notifications are being used to identify and spy on iPhone users, according to two separate reports.
The first says that in-app ads are being used to gather data intended to identify your iPhone and send highly sensitive data to security services, while the second found that apps like Facebook and TikTok are using a vulnerability in the way push notifications are handled by iOS to obtain the data for their own use …
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Counterpoint data recently suggested that Apple beat Samsung in global smartphone sales across 2023, and a new report today suggests that the company set another iPhone record last year.
Despite surprise born-again competition from Huawei, the iPhone is reported to have been the most popular smartphone in China …
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The 40th anniversary celebrations continue, with a website showing photos of every Mac Apple ever made.
The site was created by Jonathan Zufi, author of the coffee table book ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation, and includes photos from the book, as well as videos of Mac ads …
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A new supply-chain report claims that Apple has cut the number of OLED iPad Pro orders by 20-30%, as the company reportedly adopts a more pessimistic view of likely sales.
It follows a recent report stating that production of the next-generation iPad Pro models was underway, as we get closer to an anticipated spring launch …
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In a callback to Hitchcock’s 1963 horror thriller The Birds, a new 30-second Apple ad promotes the strength of Ceramic Shield.
The video shows a woman cycling through a park, her iPhone mounted to the handlebars, and using Apple Maps for navigation …
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A new report reveals that Vision Pro scalpers used bots to place thousands of pre-orders for the device, with eBay ads appearing even before pre-orders opened. eBay listings showed prices of up to $10,000.
Although placing a Vision Pro order requires both an Apple ID and a face measurement, a company which works to help companies block bot activity says that these bots were able to circumvent the face check …
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My colleague Zac wryly observed that the Apple Car has been four years away for nearly nine years now, following a report suggesting it will go on sale “as soon as 2028.”
That report also suggested that Apple has massively downgraded its ambitions, to something on a par with a Tesla, leading to critics referring to it as a “me too” product …
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