Eight of the most-installed food-tracking apps in the United States, logged meal for meal against a kitchen scale for eight weeks across three staff households. PlateLens is the best overall pick for most people — the largest verified food database in the category with AI photo logging on top of it — and the specialists are the exceptions.
Most 'free' calorie trackers are trials with the countdown hidden. We went through what each one gives you with no card on file, and where the wall actually sits.
Five apps put through a head-to-head accuracy and durability test, with the only consumer tracker to date with an independently replicated accuracy paper coming out on top.
Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound — a working journalist's explainer of how the drugs work, what the evidence shows, and what is still in dispute as the second wave of these medications enters wide use.
The training intensity that has dominated fitness conversation for the last three years has a real physiological basis and a less impressive evidence base than its loudest advocates claim. A look at what the underlying science actually shows.
The smart-home interoperability standard shipped in late 2022 with a promise to end the ecosystem wars. After running a 34-device household on it for the better part of a year, the picture is clear: lights, plugs, and sensors are solved. Cameras, vacuums, and anything with a screen are not.
Local models have got genuinely good and the hardware has caught up unevenly. We ran the current crop on three machines to find where the line sits between useful and technically impressive.
Three years into the rollout of AI-assisted programming, a working developer's assessment of what these tools have actually changed in the practice of software engineering.
A long-term review of Apple's flagship phone after six months of daily use, with attention to the parts of the experience launch reviews are not built to surface.
Francisco Partners has owned MyFitnessPal since 2020. Reuters reports the private-equity firm is now testing the market for it — the clearest sign yet that the consumer nutrition-app boom has entered its consolidation phase.
Coverage has tightened in ways the headlines have not tracked. Here is what the major categories of plan will and will not pay for, and what the options cost when they say no.
Where to actually park cash this year, with rates, fees, and the small print that separates the genuinely good accounts from the ones that work hard for the headline number.
Five drip coffee makers tested as primary household machines, ranked by brew quality, durability, and the small frustrations that surface only after the second month of use.
Five HEPA-grade air purifiers tested over eight weeks across rooms of various sizes, ranked by particulate-removal efficiency, sound, filter cost, and how they hold up to the kind of dust and dander a real household produces.
Five mattresses tested as primary sleeping surfaces over a long-form review window, with attention to the failure modes — sag, edge collapse, heat retention — that show up only after the honeymoon.
A 35-minute weeknight dinner that uses one sheet pan, six pantry-friendly ingredients beyond the chicken, and produces a meal that survives the weekday rush.
A two-pan technique that produces a week's worth of breakfast in 35 minutes, with a custard-style approach that survives reheating better than the standard egg cup.
A 15-minute pantry pasta with five ingredients, an actual sauce that comes together from the pasta water, and a finishing technique that distinguishes it from the recipe blog versions.
The apps we used to love are now full of features we never asked for, paywalls behind features that used to be free, and 'AI' overlays that solve problems we did not have. A working argument for software that does less.
The streaming services that were supposed to replace cable have, in aggregate, become more expensive than cable was. A money-beat editor's argument that the household streaming budget needs the same scrutiny as any other line item.
An open editorial explanation of the choice that defines this publication — and a few words about why the alternative model has been bad for the consumer-news beat.