Hello friends! Welcome to us Installers No. 43, your guide to the best and eve– The best things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and you can also read all the back issues at Installers the main page.)
This week I read about dumb AND telepathy AND John Lennon’s wristwatchwatching Presumed innocent AND Ren Faire, testing Genspark for the AI research stuff, redoing my homescreen with Dumbify, and experimenting with overnight oats to try to make mornings less chaotic. (It turns out that peanut butter does almost everything 20 percent better.)
I also have for you a new tech podcast, some useful new gadgets, a new calendar app, the game that will take over your weekend, and much more. Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of Installers it’s your ideas and advice. What are you with at the moment? What great apps/books/podcasts/shows/games/recipes/whatever have you discovered and enjoyed lately? Tell me everything: installer@teverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it Installerstell them to subscribe here.)
decline
- Asus VivoBook S 15. Copilot Plus computers come. It’s been a strange introduction, with all the complications of the Recall, but we’re starting to see what this new era of Qualcomm-powered Windows devices can do. So far, I’m pretty optimistic, but I’m still waiting to see how the new Surfaces turn out.
- Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. The overall vibe of this big new DLC is basically “it’s Elden Ring, only somewhat more so.” Considering how deep and big this game already was, and how many hours we’ve already put into it, that’s about all you could ask for.
- Sick of cancer. If all of Dropout Presents’ stand-up specials are as entertaining as Hank Green’s, we’ll have a new comedy series. Green here is as funny and goofy as ever and extremely Hank Green-y. It’s a watch you won’t regret.
- Xreal Beam Pro. Such a fun and different take on how smart glasses should work: instead of trying to cook everything into the glasses themselves, Xreal is pulling all the intelligence and software into a separate, fairly inexpensive smart-style device. I am excited to try this.
- Referred to: The Vaping Wars. The story of Juul may forever be one of the strangest things to ever happen in Silicon Valley. This podcast delves into that story, along with the confusing societal debate about vaping, government efforts to keep up, and where things go from here.
- Arc for iPad. Still my favorite browser, finally available on almost all my devices. (Android when, Arc people!?!) The app isn’t exactly optimized for the iPad – it’s missing some keyboard shortcuts and is really just an advanced version of the iPhone app – but it syncs and works well and I’ll totally take it that.
- Amie for Windows. Big week for cross-platform apps! Amie is one of my favorite calendar/to-do apps, and it’s gotten a lot more polished over the past few months. If you’re the all-in-one productivity type and appreciate a nice design, give this one a spin.
- Logitech Keys-to-Go 2. I’ve had the original Keys-To-Go in my bag for a few years as a super easy and useful way to get things done with my phone or iPad. This feels like a big improvement: still light, still small, but with a more proper set of keys. $80 is a lot, but I doubt I’ll end up buying one.
- A sense of rebellion. An extremely well-produced and deeply reported podcast on several decades-old ideas about AI and how we might use and live with the technology. The story here, about hippies and capitalists, government and big business, is a kind of technology story wrapped up in 10 episodes. Loving this so far.
- Clipbud. Memory history is useful and good, but having one place with all the text you type a lot – your shipping address, stock email replies, important links, all of it – is a life changer. Integrated text replacement and personal dictionary features (on iOS and Android respectively) do a lot of this, and apps like snippet are mega-powerful, but this new one is quite pleasant to use.
Split screen
I think Nick Quah has introduced me to better podcasts than any other person on earth. Even in the early days Hot Pod or in his 1.5x speed newsletter on in vulture (thresholdhis sister site here at Vox Media), he seems to have been listening to all the shows all along. Just this week, in fact, he wrote a fun story about how chat podcasts have taken over and named some of the biggest names in New Radio.
I asked Nick to share his home screen because a) I was curious what podcast app he was using and b) I was hoping he might recommend a new show or two. I got my wish on both counts! Here’s Nick’s home screen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
Phone: Recently upgraded from my trusty iPhone 12 to an iPhone 15. Seems to be going well so far; I’m no longer stressed about losing fluid on long flights.
Wall paper: My sweet, sweet boy, Siobhan (aka Shooby).
Applications: Calendar, Photos, Clock, Weather, Google Maps, To Do, Google Calendar, Gmail, Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, Steam, Delta, Strava, Discord, Slack, Stocks, LastPass, Messages, Phone, Firefox, Pocket Casts.
Yeah, as you can see, I’m pretty vanilla for the most part. All of the instantly accessible apps are things I do with some frequency on any given day. Google Maps for navigation (and snooping). I do it to fix my brain. TikTok and Instagram for something to do in the bathroom. I’ve been playing a lot more these days, so I’m constantly scouring Steam for deals. Strava, ’cause I’ve kind of become a big runner. I’ve also been hitting Delta quite a bit, working through a lot of old JRPGs. And of course, Pocket Casts, which is my right to listen to podcasts.
I also asked Nick to share some things he cares about right now. Here’s what he sent:
- I’m a huge reviewer/reviewer of things, and for whatever reason, summer is usually when I get my annual revisits. Right now, I’m working my way up Stop and catch fire for the sixth time. God, that show is so beautiful. It’s the 10th anniversary, you know?
- Like the rest of the universe at this point in time, apparently, I’m digging Chappell Roan. “Red Wine Supernova”, very good.
- Slowly making my way Season of the Witch: Witchcraft, Terror and Liberation in the City of Love, David Talbot’s 2013 history of San Francisco. I am finding it quite remarkable.
- Being informed about the episodes of My perfect consoleSimon Parkin’s excellent interview “Desert Island Discs, but for Video Games” shows that this really doubles as an entertaining historical record for the medium.
Crowdsource
Here’s what it is Installers community is in this week. I want to know what you are up to right now too! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For more recommendations than fit here, see the answers to this post in Topics.
“This little camera. I’ve been brainstorming ways to justify it because it’s so cute, but the photos are surprisingly good too.” – Daulton
“Look Likewise. It is a Nostr server that exposes the Mastodon API to its clients. So the promise is that you will be able to take your very nice Mastodon (Ivory, Ice Cubes) app and add the Nostr link right into it. It would be like an additional server in the same app where your main Mastodon account is.” – Adnan
“I’ve been slowly getting back into following the Pokemón trading cards and I’ve been hooked on seeing TheBulbaStore on YouTube. It’s very interesting to see a seller’s perspective and the prices that some cards go for now!” – Peter
“The Hawthorne and Horowitz Mysteries by Anthony Horowitz. He recently released the fifth in the series, Near death. They’ve all tortured puns as titles (in this case, “close” is a British word for enclosed area). Furthermore, the books are metafiction in which Horowitz himself is the main character, talking about how he’s writing the murder mystery series you’re reading. Still, they’re some of the best contemporary murder mysteries I’ve read, and they do a wonderful job of paying homage to Agatha Christie, all while playing with the genre.” – Kendrick
“I play and watch chess! Chess is cool now! Lots of great ways to play, but Chess.com it is probably best for beginners. And there is great content on YouTube from chess Eric Rosen, Irina Krush, Levy RozmanAND Hikaru Nakamura. I’m getting better so I can teach my three-year-old granddaughter to be a craftswoman one day.” – Ryan
“I’m having a lot of fun”Jet Lag: The Game” on YouTube. Imagine amazing race, but actually good and not written. The hosts are likeable and the game has a good complexity behind it. They’re about to finish their season in Australia and it’s been a nail-biter.” – The developer
“I am currently reading Hell Divers II: Ghosts by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. Post-apocalyptic sci-fi about halo jumpers diving into radioactive wastes to scavenge supplies from mutant monsters, and yes, it’s as good as it sounds. – Jesse
“I’ve been obsessed with my new self Klydoclock, a digital take on the classic analog clock. It features changing faces curated by the artist and can even tick and chime on the clock if you want. Best of all: it has no other functions and is not tied to an app or your phone. Minimalism and elegance at its best.” – Jonathan
“I truly believe that a home server or NAS is useful and easily accessible to more people than it currently is. More people should have theirs Plex server, Pi-hole, self-hosted cloud storage, Minecraft serverOR Self-hosted VPN. An old computer is all you need if you want to keep it simple. And if you don’t mind learning how to work with Linux, you can even use an old Android phone or a cheap Raspberry Pi clone.” – Voltaire
MEMORANDUM
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I absolutely can’t get enough of watching/hearing/reading how people who are good at their jobs do their thing. (Musician Kygo has a series of creating videos this is always the first example I think of in this genre.) One of my favorite recent examples this is the video, with Zane Lowe interviewing Finneas and Billie Eilish about the making of Eilish’s latest album. They talk about process, fear, microphones, editing and much more. I’ll almost certainly never make an album, or make a movie, or make it to the NBA, but hearing people talk about how they do it never gets old.