TGIF! For anyone new here: this is The Skinny, where we serve up curated, need-to-know lifestyle news designed to entertain and save you time, which is everyone’s most valuable resource.

• Digesting the Skinny’s curated news = 5 minutes + more time spent on meaningful activities.

• Mindless social media scrolling = hours you’ll never get back. 

What we’re covering: 

• From Fitbits to Smart Dumbbells and the Oura Ring, the latest wearable tech news (including gadgets rumored-to-be-launching soon)

• All about them apples: and, the most nutritious variety may surprise you

• How a coastal escape is the best getaway for fall 

• Why we love stick shifts (and which cars still offer them), remembering the demise of ‘Juicero,’ Virgin Voyages’ new, nimble vessel & how strength training can help alleviate depression

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It’s time

Wearable tech: what’s new, what’s worth it

The Skinny: New  season, new tech devices. But while the latest shiny objects may tempt you to purchase, you may be asking: “do I really need one?” Not a simple decision, but Gear Patrol has all the right questions to ask so you can have an honest conversation with...yourself. And if you’re thinking of investing and can spare 8 minutes, this ABC News clip gives a thorough investigation of the benefits of wearable tech, and the drawbacks of some. 

Link love: saving you time by finding the best links if you’re shopping for wearable tech! 

• For iPhone users, the new Apple Watch Series 10 has some powerful new wellness/fitness features and there is also a new Vitals app, currently in beta. But the hands-down best Apple Watch benefit, in our opinion, is its quick ability to find your iPhone that you lose in your own home/couch/bed/obscure shelf 5x a day. Pick one up here for under $400!

• Smart dumbbells? Yes, please. We’re kind of sold on these, which “count reps, analyze form and change weight in real-time.” 

• As we are certainly not techies, the fact that Fitbit was acquired by Google in 2021 was news to us. Thankfully, The Verge has the latest lowdown on all the Fitbits, including the one that technically isn’t even a Fitbit at all. Side note: our editor has the Pixel watch and enjoys its seamless integration of Fitbit into her Team Google life.

• Overall, here is Wired’s 2024 overview of the best fitness trackers for every type of user. 

• For the most stylish activity tracker, the Oura Ring is still going strong. Its tiny size, stealth ability to mask as actual jewelry and quality sleep tracking ability have earned it a star in the wearable tech hall of fame. It’s now reportedly on the cusp of a 4th generation version, and here’s a comprehensive review of the Oura Gen 3 in Healthline, provided by a certified personal trainer. And not to be outdone, rumor has it that Apple is coming out with its version of a smart ring (but if it has the Apple logo on it, who will want it?) 

The duds: Wired wraps up the most notable dumb smart tech and gadget flops, here.  

Final press: While not wearable tech, who can forget the demise of “Juicero,” the ginormous, Wi-Fi connected $400 cold press juicer and “Fyre Festival of the Appliance World" (according to this CNET writer). And if you watch one video this week that’s guaranteed to make you laugh, it’s the Bloomberg Juicero debunker.

Them apples

Which are the most photogenic, the most nutritious (and most despised?)

The Skinny: Are you an apple snob—someone who is ready to go to battle over your preferred variety? Our answer is yes, and it’s NOT Honeycrisp. Winesap and Fuji are far superior, and if anyone dares think “Red Delicious, of course!” you may want to keep that to yourself. For anyone wondering about Red Delicious’ downfall—from shiny superstar to the most bruised and beaten down—this article tells all.  

While we feel a little bad for being mean-spirited—because the apple itself isn’t responsible for becoming the Inedible frankenfruit that it is today—our final thoughts are summarized in these heds that need to be shared (and appreciated). 

• Good Riddance to Red Delicious, the Apple that Sucks Slate)

• Why the Red Delicious Apple isn’t Actually Delicious Anymore (Salon) 

• Red Delicious Apples can Rot in Hell (Vice) 

• The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious (The Atlantic) 

So, which apple is truly the one you should be eating every day? The answer, according to a dietician, might surprise you. 

As for Cosmic Crisp apples: we have written about them before, and we will do so again now. This apple may be the crispest and fairest of them all but for us, it’s also proven to be the most elusive. Mostly, we are dying to see if it can last up to a year in the fridge. 

Cosmic Crisp is hardly the most obscure apple; for the world’s most unusual (and beautiful) apples, as the stars of beguiling photographs, spend a minute with this gallery from Gastro Obscura. 

The most comprehensive round-up of (most) apples you might find in North America, and how you should eat and cook them, includes 25 varieties such as (the intriguing) Northern Spy and Coxin’s Orange Pippin. And for those truly hard-core apple aficionados, hang out with these guys—who seek out “feral apples” for their hard cider.

Crème de la Skinny  

Sneaking off to a coastal escape

The Skinny: Overtourism is not only bad news for the beautiful places you love to visit, but it can also turn an expensive, much-awaited vacation into a disaster due to crowds and stress. We’ve written about “Copycat Travel/Vacation Dupes” in the past as a way to sneakily avoid this, but we also love the idea of a cozy coastal escape for fall.

Think: a peaceful and desolate beach that smells like salt water + fall, the thrashing seaside cliffs of Maine, or the festivals of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. You can find other Southern Living fall beach escapes here, or beaches that are “even better in the fall”. 

If you’re planning to go overseas, according to CN Traveler, here are the most sizzling European beach destinations for October. 

PS: Jill is headed to Sicily in a month and will report back. 

OHM, THERE'S MORE

This week’s newsfeed

• The best movie soundtracks ever, according to Rolling Stone. Which is yours? Let us know by replying to this email! 

  In the aisles: eggflation is back, shoppers’ discontent with grocery stores is increasing, and the best Costco sales this week.

  That’s brilliant: Ahoy! Virgin Voyages’ newest ship, the “Brilliant Lady,” will set sail in fall of 2025 from ports like LA, NYC and Seattle. Sailors on the Brilliant Lady will be able to enjoy navigating through more intimate landscapes—such as the Panama Canal and Alaskan fjords—thanks to an adapted frame design. And as always on Virgin Voyages, two things you won’t encounter are kids, and buffets. 

• Arnold’s Pump Club—a newsletter we recommend to help make sense of fitness & nutrition news —reported on a study showing that two sessions of strength and resistance training twice a week helps fight anxiety and depression. 

• If you can’t start a car on a steep incline without rolling backwards, can you really even say you know how to drive? We miss our two-door Jetta from the ’90s, our ex’s Turbo GTI, the 1969 Fiat Cinquecento Nicole’s cousin let her borrow when she lived in Italy, our Scion tC (RIP) and Jill is the proud driver  of a 1983 Toyota LandCruiser, with roll-down windows and “on-off” AC. With that, here are the cars you can still buy with a stick shift.

  

  Jill’s stick shift LandCruiser, ready for action.

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