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.
Ookla’s latest speed-test report has found that T-Mobile is this year’s fastest mobile network, offering the speediest downloads overall, and the fastest 5G. For home broadband, AT&T Fiber took the crown.
Plans to boost broadband speeds have, however, been thrown into doubt by the Trump administration, which wants to abandon a target for every American to have gigabit speeds …
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Last week saw certification of the first next-gen wireless chargers, and the latest standard has now been officially launched, as Qi2 25W. The new name will help ensure we can see for sure that we’re buying the more powerful models.
The iPhone was the first to support the standard, with Android smartphones now following, but anyone planning to buy an iPhone 17 may want to hold off for now …
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Amazon has confirmed it’s in the process of buying Bee, an Apple Watch app and wearable that records everything it hears.
The platform describes itself as “a personal Al that transforms your conversations, tasks, places and more into summaries, personal insights and timely reminders” …
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After former Sonos CEO Patrick Spence left the company over the disastrous launch of a new app, Tom Conrad was appointed as an interim replacement. Update: Sonos has now confirmed Conrad as permanent CEO – see the end of the piece.
The new app left many long-term customers struggling with connectivity problems and broken features, with Conrad saying this was because the company failed to understand how its products were used in the real world …
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Meta said that it has removed 135,000 Instagram accounts for “sexualizing children,” and has launched new protections for teenage users.
A further half a million Instagram and Facebook accounts were removed by the platform when they were found to be linked to the offending profiles …
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The company behind encrypted email service Proton Mail has today launched a new freemium AI chatbot which promises that your chats will remain completely private.
Proton Lumo offers five protections it says aren’t matched by any of the existing mainstream AI services like ChatGPT and Gemini, and has even thrown shade at Apple Intelligence privacy …
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More than 10,000 organizations around the world are at risk from hackers after a serious security flaw was discovered in Microsoft’s popular Sharepoint platform, used to store and share confidential documents. The majority of companies at risk are said to be in the US.
Update: Bloomberg reports that the National Nuclear Security Administration was among the organizations breached – see the end of the piece …
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Earlier today we saw iOS 26 code suggesting that an Apple Watch sleep score feature is in development, with a percentage score indicating your readiness to tackle the day ahead. The feature also provides a more condensed graphical representation of your sleep stages than is currently available.
What is shown and described looks like a very close match for two features provided by the Oura smart ring, so here’s a look at how those work …
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With the last remaining part of the Apple tax windfall paid to the Irish government recently, we are today learning what the country plans to do with the €14.25B ($16.5B).
The country’s prime minister has promised “unprecedented” investment in the country’s ailing infrastructure, with Apple’s money to be spent mostly on electricity and water projects …
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Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has previously indicated that the iOS 26 public beta was likely to drop on around July 23 – and there may now be additional support for that date.
A leaker with a solid track record has shared information suggesting that developer beta 4 will be available sometime today (update: this did indeed happen), which would potentially allow the public beta to land tomorrow …
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With smartphone addiction a growing problem among US teens, one solution being tried is digital detox summer camps, where parents are charged around $2,000 a week to separate their kinds from their electronic devices.
One kid sent to camp was so desperate to remain connected he brought three phones with him, handed over one, had another found in his bag, and was ratted out on the third by his room-mate …
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We learned earlier this year that the British government had secretly ordered Apple to create a backdoor into encrypted data for all iCloud users worldwide. Specifically, it wanted a way to see personal data protected by Apple’s introduction of Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which extended end-to-end encryption to almost all iCloud data, meaning not even the iPhone maker could access it.
Apple has been fighting the secret order in secret court hearings, but it now appears that the US government is using technology agreement negotiations to force Britain to back down …
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We saw recently that many Gen Z people have a much more relaxed attitude to location privacy than the rest of us, happily sharing their location 24/7 with entire groups of friends.
But for those of us who prefer a more restrained approach to sharing our location, I’d like to see one basic change, and a couple of intelligent features added to the Find My app …
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A report yesterday suggested that the two iPhone 17 Pro models could get an anti-reflective display, after Apple’s suppliers managed to overcome production difficulties.
I do love anti-reflective displays, and still have very fond memories of my all-time favorite Apple one from way back in 2004, but an iPhone one would have only moderate appeal to me …
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I’m sufficiently old and grumpy to have resisted the use of emoji for a long time, wondering what was wrong with, you know, words – but I did find myself assimilated in the end.
The tiny colorful substitutes for vocabulary now make up a growing percentage of our communication, especially since Apple allowed any emoji to be used for tapback reactions ..
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More Apple chips are set to be made in the US as TSMC said it is busy accelerating the construction of its second and third Arizona plants, fulfilling a promise made back in March.
The chipmaker is bringing more advanced processes to the US earlier than initially expected, allowing it to make chips for more recent Apple products …
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A new report suggests that many people who belong to Gen Z use Find My and other apps to permanently share their location with groups of friends.
A study earlier in the year found that 40% of Gen Z adults share their location with three or more people, and a new piece found it was common to location-share with double digit numbers of friends …
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We’ve seen a series of leaks claiming to reveal the iPhone 17 colors, and a new report corroborates these, citing an “internal report.”
The report lists six colors for the base model iPhone 17, four for the all-new iPhone 17 Air, and five for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max …
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The nine-year saga between Apple, the Irish government, and the EU ended last year when the final appeal ordered the iPhone maker to pay €13B ($15B) in back tax to the Irish government.
That money sat in an escrow account for many years, increasing in value to €14.25B ($16.5B), but has now been paid …
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There’s been speculation that a legal ruling could see Apple banned from selling iPhones made with Chinese displays within the US, but Apple has now confirmed that this is not the case.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has upheld a complaint by Samsung that China’s BOE had stolen trade secrets relating to OLED screens, and banned the import of products containing these …
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If you’re looking for a faster wireless charger for your iPhone, there are at least eight new models on the way, supporting up to 25W.
That’s thanks to the latest Qi2.2 standard, with eight different products being certified yesterday – but even after they launch, you may still want to wait …
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Apple’s Weather app went down for many users, showing no data. The issue applied on all platforms, suggesting a server issue. However, it now seems to be slowly returning …
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It’s widely acknowledged that while Apple is happy for any Vision Pro sales it can get, the primary purpose of the existing headset is to let the company take a first step in the journey towards an Apple Glasses product.
But while a cheaper Apple Vision still seems to be a couple of years away, along with the company’s equivalent of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, we are now seeing the potential emergence of smart goggles as an interim device – with TikTok entering the fray …
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Back in May, analyst Jeff Pu suggested that while the iPhone 17 Pro models would get an A19 Pro chip, and the iPhone 17 Air would get an A19, the base model would get the same A18 chip as the iPhone 16.
In a note seen by 9to5Mac, Pu now says the supply chain evidence suggests he was wrong, and that the base iPhone 17 will get the same A19 chip as the Air – but with one significant difference …
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