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.
Yesterday gave us our best look yet at the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, in the form of a highly realistic dummy model shown alongside the iPhone 16 Pro.
Apple will doubtless employ a whole range of superlatives to describe the look of the device: thinnest, slimmest, sleekest … and it will of course be the <superlative>est phone they’ve ever made, and Tim will be sure we’re going to love it …
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Meta’s encrypted messaging app WhatsApp will use an approach pioneered by Apple to add AI capabilities without compromising privacy.
The company has announced that it will use tech it calls Private Processing, which appears to exactly replicate Apple’s Private Cloud Compute …
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Apple CEO Tim Cook has said the company is “excited” to be the first customer of TSMC’s Arizona chip plants. He made the comment as the company started construction on its third US plant.
TSMC says that the addition of the third plant makes the project the largest single foreign investment in US history …
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Security vulnerabilities discovered in Apple’s AirPlay SDK mean that millions of devices could be hacked by attackers. The flaw has been dubbed AirBorne.
Related vulnerabilities would also have allowed hackers to attack Apple devices too, but the iPhone maker says it has issued fixes for these in the past few months. CarPlay devices are also vulnerable, though the real-life risks there are very low …
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Trigger warning for brief references to sexual assault.
It’s been discovered that millions of Reddit users were deceived and “psychologically manipulated” by an unauthorized AI experiment performed by researchers from the University of Zurich …
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A leaker with a decent track record says that Apple will be switching to a much better type of integrated memory for the iPhone 18 line-up, offering three benefits over the current RAM spec.
It’s also looking increasingly likely that all iPhone 17 models will get 12GB of integrated memory to boost AI performance …
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Key Apple supplier Pegatron has suggested that the US might soon see “empty shelves” in stores due to the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
Pegatron is second only to Foxconn in its role in Apple’s supply chain, as a key assembler for MacBooks, iPads, and the Apple Watch …
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A Bloomberg report over the weekend suggested that we may see Apple smart glasses as an interim step along the way toward a full AR-based Apple Glasses product.
Essentially, it would be a copy of the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses – and as someone who uses those, my view is that an Apple version only makes sense if two key conditions are met …
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Slow Horses was one of three Apple TV+ shows to win multiple BAFTAs at a ceremony in London last night, hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
BAFTAs recognize the best in British television and film, and Apple has notched up a number of awards over the years …
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The idea of a made-in-USA iPhone is one of those fantasies that refuses to die, despite Apple pointing out many times why it would be utterly impossible.
The Financial Times has now weighed in with a detailed report on why even the few American-made components aren’t really made in the country, and the 2,700 reasons why the idea is so wildly impractical …
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I thought my days of wearing a smartwatch were over, after making the switch to dumb watches and relying instead on a smart ring, but the chance to try out a $65 Apple Watch clone proved too intriguing to refuse!
I fully expected it to be pretty terrible. But while I wouldn’t recommend buying the WithIt Giga instead of an Apple Watch, I was actually quite pleasantly surprised …
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Apple was yesterday fined €500M ($570M) by the EU for its App Store policies. Apple has now responded, stating that it is being unfairly targeted, with the White House also weighing in to describe fines levied against Apple and Meta as “extortion.”
Update: While there had earlier appeared some softenting in position on both sides of the antitrust dispute, Apple has now told us that it will appeal the ruling – see the end of the piece …
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Ray-Ban Meta glasses now offer a live translation feature to all owners, after an earlier small-scale test. You can download language packs in advance, enabling translation even when you don’t have a mobile data connection.
The Meta AI features, which lets you ask the glasses questions about what you’re seeing, has also now launched in EU countries, and there are new frame and lens combos too …
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Apple chipmaker TSMC says that it will make chips with a sub-2nm process size for the first time ever in 2028, and that the development of 1.4nm chips will allow for greater AI capabilities.
The iPhone maker is generally first in line for the company’s most advanced chipmaking capabilities, so we can expect the chips – slightly confusingly dubbed A14 – to debut in 2028 iPhones …
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WhatsApp users have expressed frustration at the fact that there is no way to remove the new Meta AI chatbot feature from the messaging app, raising concerns that the company is seeking to use their private chats to train the bot.
Meta says the AI chatbot can’t read messages unless one of the chat participants chooses to share it, but adds that the company is “listening to feedback” from users …
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A new residential property survey is suggesting that smart home tech can add to the resale value, though there are some big caveats.
The headline news is that more than a quarter of American homebuyers are now willing to pay a premium for smart homes, and that the average perceived value-add is $18k …
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If you want to run Windows game on your Mac, you’ve so far had two options – the free Whisky app, and the paid CrossOver one. Sadly, but understandably, Whisky is now going away …
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I’m often skeptical about survey results. There are small-scale ones, where the claimed trends are actually within the margin of error for the sample size, and even in larger ones there’s still ample scope for the results to be way less meaningful than they might seem.
I have to say that Morgan Stanley’s survey on consumer attitudes to Apple Intelligence triggered my doubtometer, as the rosy picture it paints doesn’t seem a very good match for the current state of play …
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I know, I’m writing about the Apple Watch and a subtle shade of blue while illustrating the piece with a dumb watch with very unsubtle blue face, but bear with me here.
A report yesterday suggested that the iPhone 17 Pro is going to be available in the Sky Blue, the name Apple gave to the subtle blue tint of one of the M4 MacBook Air options …
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The launch of the M4 MacBook Air back in March helped Apple enjoy faster growth than any other computer maker in the first quarter of the year, according to a new report.
However, there are concerns that this boost may be short-lived, due to the potential for tariffs to be imposed later in the year …
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Tech companies have often been accused of making it hard to cancel subscriptions, but Uber appears to have taken things to a whole new level! It’s being sued by the FTC for forcing Uber One subscribers to take as many as 32 separate actions when they want to cancel.
The Federal Trade Commission also says that Uber illegally started charging subscribers before the end of their free trial period, and lied about the cost savings …
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Apple’s replacement of the iPhone SE with the iPhone 16e raised an obvious question: Would the ad-hoc update schedule for the SE series also be replaced with an annual refresh, kicking off with an iPhone 17e?
A leaker with the right credentials to answer this question said back in February they believed the answer to be yes, and the same source says there is now solid evidence for this …
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Detecting scam emails is getting increasingly difficult as attackers use more and more sophisticated methods. A new report highlights a method which makes fake security alerts from Google and PayPal look extremely convincing.
It reinforces the need to apply a simple but effective safeguard anytime you receive what seems to be an important email requiring your immediate attention …
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Logitech prices have increased by as much as 25%, in what is almost certainly the result of tariffs kicking in on products imported from China. Not all prices have gone up, so if you have your eye on one of the unaffected accessories, now might be a good time to buy …
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