Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy

benlovejoy

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.

Connect with Ben Lovejoy

Apple Hide My Email bug seemingly allows 100% of real email addresses to be discovered

Apple Hide My Email (screenshot shown) bug seemingly allows 100% of real email addresses to be discovered

A privacy flaw in Apple’s Hide My Email feature means that your real email address can be discovered. A security researcher said that tests found 100% of generated addresses allowed an attacker to reveal the real email associated with the Apple account.

Tyler Murphy said that he discovered and reported the issue to Apple more than a year ago, but it still hasn’t been fixed, and he has now made the decision to go public …

Expand Expanding Close

An accessibility paywall on Meta Glasses could be good news for Apple Glasses

The 'ridiculous paywall' on Meta Glasses could be good news for Apple Glasses | Meta Glasses shown

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses and the latest cheaper non-designer option are sold on the basis of the built-in AI features, but the company has just announced a “ridiculous” limit on the free usage you can make of an accessibility feature.

Effectively, Meta has retroactively applied a paywall to a hardware product it already sold to customers …

Expand Expanding Close

Would a sleeker Apple Watch design justify losing band compatibility? [Poll]

Would a sleeker Apple Watch design justify losing band compatibility? | Close-up of the current attachment system

The first report of a major new Apple Watch design dates back to 2023, so you probably shouldn’t hold your breath on the basis of the latest claim. The original Bloomberg report said that an Apple Watch X would arrive in 2024 or 2025, so …

Leaker Instant Digital doesn’t appear to have any new information about an upcoming redesign, but rather refers back to that original report and says it is finally arriving this year. But they do echo the claim that it will break compatibility with existing bands …

Expand Expanding Close

Law proposed to ban AI companies from selling your health data

Law proposed to ban AI companies from selling your health data | Of a three-dimensional X-ray with DNA strand and molecule structure

People commonly disclose all kinds of personal data to AI chatbots, including the highly inadvisable practice of asking them for health advice. In addition to the grave medical dangers of obtaining inaccurate advice, users are also running significant privacy risks.

Most AI chatbots have terms and conditions that allow any of your conversations with them to be used as training data, and often app terms that allow data to be collated and sold. Democrats now propose to update a privacy law to prevent the sale of health data …

Expand Expanding Close

Netflix ramps up account sharing protections via new email requirement

Netflix ramps up account sharing protections via new email requirement | Screenshot shown

Netflix has been trying to clamp down on password sharing for years now, and it has just added an additional barrier in the form of a new requirement for each profile to have a unique email address.

In other streaming news, Amazon is being sued for forcing Prime Video members to watch ads without reducing the subscription fee to compensate them …

Expand Expanding Close

Three AirDrop vulnerabilities discovered, with Apple working on a full fix

Three AirDrop vulnerabilities discovered, with Apple working on a full fix | Two iPhones exchanging contact details via AirDrop

Three AirDrop vulnerabilities have been discovered by security researchers, affecting both iPhone and Mac, with similar ones found in Android’s Quick Share.

An attacker could easily exploit the vulnerabilities to cause AirDrop, AirPlay, Handoff, Universal Clipboard, and Continuity Camera to crash and remain unavailable for as long as the attack continues …

Expand Expanding Close

Apple may have to allow 3rd-party app payments and Apple Pay rivals in UK

Apple may have to allow 3rd-party app payments and Apple Pay rivals in UK | Photo shows an Apple Pay transaction

Britain’s antitrust regulator has proposed forcing Apple to allow developers to link to third-party payment options to purchase apps and subscriptions outside of the App Store.

The proposal would specifically ban Apple from using the same forms of “malicious compliance” it has tried in both the US and EU …

Expand Expanding Close

A maxed-out 16-inch MacBook Pro now has a 5-figure price tag

A maxed-out 16-inch MacBook Pro (shown) now has a 5-figure price tag

A maxed out MacBook Pro has never been cheap given Apple’s pricing on both RAM and SSD upgrades, but the recent price hikes mean that the 16-inch model now tops out at a five-figure sum.

John Gruber ran the numbers and noted that while the base model prices only went up by around 14%, there were massive increases to both RAM and storage options …

Expand Expanding Close

Apple may struggle to get clearance for Chinese RAM, even for Chinese iPhones

Apple may struggle to get clearance for Chinese RAM, even for Chinese iPhones | Photo shows an Apple Store in Beijing

We learned yesterday that Apple is trying to persuade the Trump administration to allow it to buy memory chips from two Chinese companies blacklisted by the Pentagon, CXMT and YMTC.

Apple previously sought permission from the Biden administration to do the same thing back in 2022, and that did not go well – despite promising to use the chips only for iPhones sold in China …

Expand Expanding Close

Will Apple reverse the price increases when the memory shortage eases? [Poll]

Will Apple reverse the price increases when the memory shortage eases? | Photo shows the Apple Store in Nanjing

Apple’s price increases were both swift and dramatic. As some of us suspected, there was just over a week between CEO Tim Cook warning that the move would be unavoidable and the new pricing taking effect.

The increases were substantial in both percentage and absolute terms. The highest percentage increase was the Apple TV 4K, with a 55% increase …

Expand Expanding Close

The most surprising Apple price increase is to the MacBook Neo

The most surprising Apple price increase is to the MacBook Neo (shown here in silver)

Earlier this week, I outlined three reasons for agreeing with Mark Gurman that the Apple price increases could be imminent, and that indeed proved to be the case.

iPhones have escaped the increases, but they are otherwise both broad-reaching and pretty dramatic. But perhaps the most surprising thing is that the MacBook Neo has been included …

Expand Expanding Close

iPhone Ultra 3D-printed hinge problems reportedly solved, ready for September launch

iPhone Ultra 3D-printed hinge problems reportedly solved, ready for September launch | Render of the iPhone Ultra shown

Talk of a delayed launch for the upcoming iPhone Ultra now seems to have faded away, with all recent reports pointing to Apple’s foldable being unveiled during the September keynote.

The latest supply-chain report says that earlier issues with the 3D-printed hinge module have now been resolved, with the device now entering the next stage of production …

Expand Expanding Close

Can you save money with a USB4 cable over a Thunderbolt 4 one?

USB4 versus Thunderbolt 4 | Cable connecting a MacBook Pro to an Apple monitor

The USB-C standard effectively played a nasty trick on us, especially where cables are concerned. That’s because it isn’t really a standard at all, but is instead merely a common plug and socket form-factor that can encompass a wide range of capabilities and standards.

Ensuring you buy the right USB-C cable for your needs has been a problem for many years now. That’s because you don’t want to buy a cable that doesn’t fully meet the standards, but at the same time there’s no point in paying for a higher-spec cable than you need for your particular application …

Expand Expanding Close

Buying an iPhone Ultra could be an expensive experiment, warns resale site

Buying an iPhone Ultra (render shown) could be an expensive experiment, warns resale site

If you are planning to buy an iPhone Ultra to find out how useful it is in practice, with the idea of selling it if it doesn’t live up to expectations, a resale site warns that it could prove a very expensive experiment.

Data shows that foldables lose more resale value in their first year than any other smartphone category, whether measured in percentage or absolute terms …

Expand Expanding Close