Glenn Fleishman reports on security changes in El Capitan that will affect how some of your (my) favorite programs (SuperDuper) do the voodoo that they do do so well. Updates will be required but you can’t make a more secure omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Dan Frommer points this out for the obvious-impared. Of course the debate is “flop or not” instead of “hit or not” when we have very little idea. Such is the state of discourse about Apple.

New colors and an A8 chip for the iPod touch which was desperately needed. My son had the previous A5-based model and it was fairly intolerable. I’m slightly surprised they didn’t bump up the screen size. Jason Snell suggests that puts some life into the idea that an updated 4-inch iPhone might come in September. As someone who chafes under the yoke of our phablet oppressors, I hope he’s right.

Craig Hockenberry writes about his experience using his Apple Watch while swimming.

I suspect that the watch’s water resistance has been undersold by Apple just like battery life: it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver. Still,

July 14, 2015 at 11:42 am

Ken Segall:

Sometimes I wonder if people understand how organizations like Slice work. They make money by selling their services to client companies,

(Hat tip to Ben Bajarin)

Dan and Lex like their Amazon Echoes but I’m having none of it.

Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away.

Jason Snell takes a look at the El Capitan beta which is out today. Looks like I picked a bad week to swear off installing operating systems that might cause me trouble. Of all the gin joints in all the world, the El Capitan beta has to walk into yeah, I’m gonna install it somewhere.

The New York Times reports on a study showing that sugary drinks cause 184,000 deaths worldwide a year.

“There’s no need to drink these beverages,” said the senior author, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts. “They’re causing tens of thousands of deaths, and we should eliminate them from the food supply.”

As a kid I used to come home from school and drink a tall glass of orange Hi-C and eat a stack of Keebler Fudge Stripes. I think I avoided childhood obesity by not finishing my dinner. I’m not sure how I avoided childhood diabetes. Over the past 10 years I’ve almost completely removed soda (even diet, which might not cause diabetes but is just a chemical swill) and sugary drinks from my diet thanks to prodding from my wife in favor of seltzer water or iced oolong or green tea. It’s cheaper, better for you and provides plenty of flavor, particularly the oolong. Every once in a while I’ll treat myself to a Mexican Coke or Pepsi Throwback.

I certainly don’t lead a perfect life, far from it. You have to pick your battles. I just found this one a surprisingly easy one to win in retrospect and it has a decent amount of upside.

It’s kind of a shame that Son of Ping is a thing you want to turn off, but it really does nothing for me that subscribing to Moby’s Instagram wouldn’t do — at least yet — and turning it off brings the Playlists tab back. So here we are.