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 two technothriller novels , a romcom novel, and an SF novella series.
He is old enough to have owned the original Macintosh. He currently owns an M1 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro, a MacBook Air 11, 12.9-inch iPad Pro (LTE 256GB), iPhone 13 Pro Max (256GB), Dell Ultrawide 49-inch monitor, an Apple Watch (Series 4 WiFi) and multiple HomePods – he suspects it might be cheaper to have a cocaine habit than his addiction to all things anodised aluminum.
He thinks wires are evil and had a custom desk made to hide them, known as the OC Desk for obvious reasons.
He’s known for his op-ed and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review:
He considers 1000 miles a good distance for a cycle ride and Chernobyl a suitable tourist destination. What can we say, he’s that kind of chap.
He speaks fluent English but only broken American, so please forgive any Anglicised spelling in his posts.
If @benlovejoy-ing him on twitter, please follow him first so that he can DM you if appropriate. If you have information you can pass on, you can also email him. If you would like to comment on one of his pieces, please do so in the comments – he does read them all.
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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If you live in one of nine eligible states, you can buy a range of Apple products without paying state sales tax.
The sales tax holidays take place annually, with varying dates and product eligibility, but in almost all cases you get only a few days to act …
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What’s a Mac app that was included on the very first Macintosh back in 1984 – long before the internet – and still exists on today’s machines, albeit with a different name?
Designer and author Marcin Wichery has not only traced the first 20 years of development of that app, but has also included emulators that let you experience it for yourself …
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A web advocacy group says that iPhone users still get no real web browser choice more than a year after this was supposed to happen under antitrust legislation.
The non-profit Open Web Advocacy (OWA) claims Apple deliberately places obstacles in the path of developers, and that’s because doing so protects a large slice of its profits …
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While macOS 26 is set to bring a whole new look and feel, three new apps, and a slew of new features, it does also remove a very old feature still loved by some: Launchpad.
Launchpad dates all the way back to 2010, and lets you see and organize all your Mac apps across a series of screens. There are two main reasons some people still use it today …
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Apple is gearing up for simultaneous production of the iPhone 17 in both China and India, despite apparent attempts by the Chinese government to disrupt this.
Achieving day one assembly in India has long been a key objective for Apple’s work in reducing its dependence on China as a manufacturing hub, but has never before been achieved …
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HomeKit dramatically improved the user-friendliness of both configuring and controlling smart homes, by allowing everything to be done though a single app.
But while the Home app was a fantastic breakthrough for its time, technology has moved on, and I think Apple needs to respond. Here are three advanced features I’d like to see in the AI age …
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macOS 26 brings a major new user–interface to the Mac, as well as some powerful new functionality. Apple has also updated a lot of its own apps, in addition to bringing three apps to the Mac for the first time.
Here’s what the company has to share …
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Apple trade-in values have been cut for most models of iPhone, all Macs, several Apple Watches, and one iPad.
Additionally, there are two older Apple products the company will no longer accept as trade-in against a new one, making them officially worthless …
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Authorities came under fire when it was suggested there were no warnings of the flash floods in Texas, which resulted in at least 120 lives being lost, with many more people still missing.
In fact, the Wireless Emergency Alerts system was used to send multiple warnings, but a number of issues meant that many Texans didn’t receive them or act on them – and a new report suggests that’s a hard problem to fix …
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An iPhone Fold production line is being prepared in readiness for the launch of the first folding iPhone next year, and a new supply-chain report says that this is almost ready to begin production. The news follows a recent report that Apple is currently testing realistic prototypes of the device.
The plant will reportedly have the capacity to produce displays for around twice as many devices as Apple actually expects to sell …
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Nvidia, the US company specializing in high-performance GPU cards, has become the first ever company with a market capitalization of four trillion dollars. It is now the most valuable company in the world, ahead of Apple and Microsoft.
It’s a little over a year since the company overtook AAPL thanks to a spectacular rise in value that saw it go from being worth $2T to more than $3T in just four months …
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A “click to cancel” law was last month passed in California, and now the FTC has ratified a federal rule designed to achieve the same goal. The idea of both is to force companies to make it as easy to cancel an online or app subscription as it is to sign up in the first place.
Update: Following a court challenge, the US Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the rule. See update at the end …
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X owner Elon Musk recently implemented changes to the platform’s AI chatbot Grok, explicitly telling it not to trust mainstream media and to be less politically correct. Obviously there was no way anyone could possibly predict how that would turn out, so it’s a complete shock that Musk has been forced to silence it …
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