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.
Apple commentator John Gruber yesterday described Siri’s current performance as “an unfunny joke,” giving its inability to correctly name the winner of Super Bowl 13 an example, noting that this is a basic query that any US chatbot ought to be able to answer.
It turns out that wasn’t an entirely random example: it was prompted by his friend Paul Kafasis, who decided to test Siri on Super Bowl 1 to 60 inclusive – and the results were not good …
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The never-ending saga of the TikTok ban continues, with a ByteDance board member suggesting that a compromise would be possible.
The remark was made by William E. Ford, an American businessman who is one of the directors of parent company ByteDance …
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AI chatbot ChatGPT is down for many users in the US and the UK, with a variety of errors being reported – including gateway errors, login failures, and chats not loading …
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A Subaru security vulnerability allowed millions of cars to be remotely tracked, unlocked, and started. A full year’s worth of location history was available, and was accurate to within five meters …
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More than two dozen subreddits have banned X links, including those with millions of users. Hundreds more of the Reddit groups are currently discussing following suit …
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Used iPhones with TikTok installed on them are being listed for sale on eBay for thousands of dollars, as people try to cash in on the ban. One listing even asks $50,000 for an unlocked iPhone 12 Pro Max “with TikTok app.”
Although Trump has issued an executive order claiming to shield companies from liability for breaking the law, Apple, Google and others continue to comply by keeping TikTok out of their US app stores …
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A judge has ruled that there is a “reasonable possibility” that Apple illegally paid women less than men, meaning that a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 12,000 current and former female employees will proceed.
Apple admits that the pay disparities exist, but claim that these can be justified by the individual circumstances …
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We yesterday got a look at what is claimed to be the iPhone 17 Air camera bump, and the reaction hasn’t been … overly favorable.
While we don’t know for sure that the photo shows the real thing, our own sources indicate that the design depicted is probably accurate …
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We’ve today been given a preview of the gorgeous new Apple Miami Worldcenter store ahead of its opening on Friday morning.
The company has highlighted the store’s “biophilic” design, environmental credentials, accessibility features, and multicultural Latin American influence …
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Philips Hue and other smart bulbs based on the Zigbee standard could soon act as motion sensors without the need for any additional hardware. This would mean they could automatically switch on when someone enters a room without using a separate motion sensor.
Even better, the new functionality looks set to be added to existing Hue bulbs through an update to the Hue Bridge …
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If Ray-Ban Meta glasses are not your style, the company is expected to launch a pair of Oakley smart glasses later this year. These will likely mirror the functionality of Meta’s existing AI glasses, but with very different styling.
The Oakley glasses are reportedly based on the Sphaera model, which is primarily aimed at cyclists and other athletes …
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The Truecaller app has long been able to flag some incoming spam and scam phone calls, enabling you to reject them, but Apple privacy rules prevented the iOS version from working as effectively as the Android one. This means the iPhone would fail to identify many callers that would be flagged on Android phones.
A new Apple API in iOS 18.2 solves the privacy problem, and additionally now allows Truecaller to automatically block known spammers …
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The Indonesian government has said that it expects its iPhone 16 ban to be lifted “within one or two weeks,” but has not explained the basis for this.
The country’s investment minister issued only a rather strangely-worded and somewhat contradictory comment which implied that a deal was close …
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I’ve previously argued that Apple Intelligence could be the biggest reason to buy an Apple smart home camera. Longer term, I think it also has the potential to create a whole new era of truly smart homes.
How long it will take before we can trust Apple Intelligence to run our homes is a whole other question! There’s no arguing with the fact that there’s a long way to go before the AI tech will be more than a public beta. But the longer-term potential does excite me …
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Two of the world’s leading market intelligence firms report that the iPhone has lost its place as the best-selling phone in China, dropping from 1st to 3rd place in the final quarter of last year.
Increased competition from local brands is cited as one factor, the second being Apple’s inability to offer AI features in the country …
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The TikTok ban which came into effect on Sunday has been suspended for 75 days by an executive order signed by President Trump on his inauguration day. He has also said that US companies who provide services to TikTok during this time will not be prosecuted.
However, legal scholars note that Trump’s order does not appear to comply with the law, and say that companies who make TikTok available remain liable for hundreds of billions of dollars of fines, so Apple is unlikely to return the app to the App Store …
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Apple is facing criminal complaints by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which accuses the company of illegally using conflict minerals, also known as “blood minerals.” The terms refer to minerals sourced from illegal sources who employ child labor and use the proceeds to buy weapons for armed conflicts.
The charges have been filed in Belgium and France because those countries have a strong judicial record in corporate accountability cases. Update: Belgium has now opened an investigation – see the end of the piece …
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As is usual, Apple is celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day on its homepage, with quotes from the civil rights champion.
This year’s lead quote is: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically” …
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The fun Apple-related history reveals we saw last week continue. A confidential internal presentation spotted within newly-published archives shows that at least nine people within Nokia realized the huge threat posed by the iPhone the day after it launched.
Sadly, senior execs failed to listen, and in just seven years Nokia went from owning the smartphone business to exiting it …
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Bloomberg has suggested that a 2025 iPad Air will launch early this year, which would be sooner than expected. We suggested then that it will probably get an M3 chip rather than an M4, and that now appears to be corroborated by a leaker.
While today’s report says nothing on dates, a redacted document makes reference to an “iPad Air 13 (M3)” and an “iPad Air 11 (M3)” …
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A security vulnerability has been discovered in the USB-C port controller fitted to the iPhone 15 and 16. However, exploiting it would be so complex that both Apple and the security researcher who discovered it concluded that it is not a real-world threat.
However, a security concern that does pose a threat to iPhone users is a tactic scammers are using to bypass one of Apple’s built-in protections. Update: A flurry in E-ZPass scam messages appears to have been driven by a Chinese phishing kit – see new section below …
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Social media apps X and Bluesky are both rolling out dedicated video feeds, in apparent attempts to take advantage of the continued uncertainty around TikTok.
With X, there’s a new play button icon launching a continuous video feed looking very similar to TikTok, while Bluesky offers custom feeds for video which you can choose to pin …
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This weekend was quite the roller-coaster ride for TikTok. While some headlines report that TikTok is back and imply that the matter is resolved, that’s not entirely the case.
The app was removed from Apple’s App Store, as well as the app stores run by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. None of those companies have restored it …
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The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against General Motors and OnStar for selling location and driving data from millions of GM car owners, allegedly without informed consent. This data was collected as frequently as every three seconds.
Both companies have been banned from selling location and driving behavior data for a period of five years, and will need to ensure they disclose any future sharing plans, and obtain proper consent for it …
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