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.
There’s a lot of speculation at present about what clues Vision Pro availability may give regarding the popularity of the device.
Whatever happens, we can expect breathless headlines about Vision Pro being either a runaway success or a flop, depending on how quickly or slowly delivery dates slip …
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As it does every year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, Apple has devoted its homepage to remembering and honoring the US civil rights pioneer.
There’s also a link to a free ebook: The Essential Martin Luther King Jr …
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There are likely going to be a lot of people hoping to get an early Vision Pro demo, but if you do succeed in reserving a slot (details below), we now have a good idea of what to expect.
Larger stores will have dedicated sit-down Vision Pro demo areas, with more than a dozen headsets available for customers to try …
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Back in 2021, I talked about just how much the iPhone 13 video stabilisation impressed me.
For casual usage, the in-camera stabilization is nothing short of miraculous. Would I use it for anything more serious, like short films? I’d still prefer the 100% stability of a tripod for locked-off shots, but it’s honestly very close to the point at which I’d be willing to use it, and I might well do so for panning and tilting movements, which look almost as smooth as tripod-mounted shots.
One year and one iPhone generation later, that was still the case …
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Airbags have been proven to save lives, but an Apple Car airbag system presents a new challenge – one which could be solved by a new approach, says the company.
Airbags have been around for a long time. The first one to be fitted to a car dates back to Chevrolet Impala with a customized Oldsmobile dashboard in 1973, followed by an Oldsmobile Toronado, and they’ve been required by law in all cars sold in the US since 1998. That’s with good reason …
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Apple has updated a support document to reflect an earlier unannounced increase in the maximum number of AirTags and other “items” supported by the Find My app.
When AirTags first launched, the maximum number of items supported was 16, which was subsequently doubled to 32 …
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We’re rapidly approaching every American’s favorite time of year: The opportunity to file your federal and state taxes …
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Two major market intelligence firms have released PC market reports on the same day, with dramatically differing pictures of how Mac shipments fared last quarter.
Depending on which company you believe, Mac shipments either grew by 9.3% year-on-year, or fell by almost twice that …
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While critics might say Apple is falling behind in the AI race, there’s one area where the Cupertino company has led the way: on-device AI processing using the Neural Engine in its iPhone, iPad, and Mac chips.
Market intelligence company says it expects Windows PC brands to follow Apple’s lead this year, putting their own equivalent of Neural Engine chips into high-end laptops this year …
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The first claimed Vision Pro competitor has been announced, in the form of the Xreal Air 2 Ultra. The device is powered by the shiny new spatial computing chip Qualcomm announced on Friday, and costs just a fifth of the price of Vision Pro.
Update: See the hands-on video at the bottom for a sense of what they are like to use …
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The security vulnerability which seemingly led to an AirDrop crack by a Chinese state institute has been known to Apple since at least 2019, according to a new report.
Some new details are also emerging about how China is able to obtain the phone numbers and email addresses of people transferring files via AirDrop …
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Last week saw the announcement of a new product that’s either genius or comedy: the Clicks iPhone keyboard case.
As someone who grew up with smartphones with hardware keyboards, I’m looking forward to trying it for myself. A tech writer who got a brief hands-on session at CES says that it does at least give reasonably good demo …
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We’re seeing a succession of companies announce headset or glasses products at CES 2024, with the ASUS AirVision M1 glasses the latest of these.
So far, none of the three companies to announce have sought to take on Vision Pro with a truly comparable product, and the AirVision M1 glasses don’t change that …
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Meta has announced that teen Instagram and Facebook accounts will in future block a wide range of harmful content, including posts about self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders. The move is being made in response to lawsuits by the majority of US states …
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While Apple is making behind-the-scenes preparations for allowing third-party app stores to comply with Europe’s antitrust requirements, the company is continuing to make arguments about why it shouldn’t have to.
Latest among these is the suggestion that the App Store shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘platform’ as the company actually operates five different app stores …
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We saw the first potential Vision Pro competitor yesterday, in the form of the $699 Xreal Air 2 Ultra – and Sony has also now announced its own device. Interestingly, it doesn’t yet appear to have a name.
As with the Xreal glasses, how much competition the Sony headset will pose to Vision Pro depends on who would be buying it, and for what reason …
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In a significant breach of Apple’s privacy measures, a new report says that AirDrop was cracked by the Chinese government, to reveal the phone number and email address of senders.
The anonymity of AirDrop was one of the reasons it has been commonly used by activists to share information about protests, and other information censored by the government …
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The latest upcoming retail store in South Korea looks like a relatively modest one, but it comes with some cute new Apple wallpaper.
The colorful, graffiti-inspired logo also cleverly incorporates the name of the store in Hangul characters …
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Apple last year lost some 2023 iPhone sales, thanks to growing competition from Samsung and born-again competition from Huawei, but a new report today shows that the Cupertino company remains by far the most dominant player in the premium smartphone market.
Update: An analyst report suggests that the impact may be even greater than Counterpoint’s data indicates – see update at the bottom of the piece …
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Apple has announced that prescription lenses for Vision Pro will cost $149, significantly less than had been predicted by Bloomberg back in the summer of last year.
There will also be reading lenses – a range of standard-strength lenses without a prescription …
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We know that Apple will be strongly encouraging Vision Pro buyers to come to an Apple Store for a personal fitting session, as this is key to both the user experience and comfort. But a Vision Pro iPhone app may serve as an alternative for anyone nowhere near a store.
Apple may also recommend that all owners use the app from time to time to ensure that they still have the optimum alignment …
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The popular podcasting app Castro appears to have ceased functioning, and the website has gone. The latter appears to be because the domain is no more, as emails also bounce.
A former employee predicted back in November of last year that the app would be shut down within two months, a prediction which now appears to be accurate despite the company’s comments at the time …
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The EU antitrust head, Margrethe Vestager, is next week scheduled to meet Tim Cook and other CEOs of big tech companies.
It comes at a time when Apple appears to be softening its opposition to antitrust issues, and preparing for a more cooperative relationship with competition authorities …
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If you’ve ever tried to create nested folders in Apple Notes, you might have concluded that it’s not possible. Update: One method which failed before on iPhone now work – more below.
It’s easiest on a Mac – but even then it’s not exactly an intuitive process, so I’m guessing I’m not the only one who didn’t know how to do it …
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