Hello friends! Welcome to us Installers No. 45, your guide to the best and eve– The best things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, sorry I really like productivity apps and you can also read all the old issues at Installers the main page.)
I’m back from a few days off, feeling rested and sunburned and ready to rumble. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes! This week, I have been reading Made for love and stories about AI players AND Musicians of AI AND Ferrari EVwatching Point of returnreplacing my weather app with Lazy weather, raged at Ira Glass for listening to podcasts at 2x speedand pouring out all my feelings to drops That edition.
I also have for you a new phone, a new smart ring, a new/old podcast reunion, a sci-fi show that everyone seems to love, a nice update to a great recipe app, and a wild AI pod to watch. Lots going on for mid-July! Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installers it’s your ideas and advice. What are you with at the moment? What should everyone else be reading / watching / playing / eating / downloading / saving for winter? Tell me everything: installer@teverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it Installerstell them to subscribe here.)
decline
- CMF 1 phone. A good-looking, durable Android phone for $200? With an OLED screen and interchangeable back plates and a bunch of really cool accessories, one of which is a kickstand? Yes. Please. In orange, of course.
- Samsung Galaxy Ring. I’m still a fan of Samsung’s Fold and Flip phones, even though the new models are pretty much the same and even more expensive. But I’m most excited about the Galaxy Ring, which seems to have pretty much nailed the smart ring hardware — and even has some interesting ideas for gesture control.
- “Diggnation Reunion Part 1.” If you’re a techie of a certain age, chances are you grew up watching Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht drinking and making fun of technology while sitting on a couch. Seeing the boys back together was a nice blast from the past. AND there is a second parttoo!
- Delta 1.6. Delta game emulation is on the iPad! I’m actually not sure how much I’ll use this given how much of my retro gaming is on an iPhone with a Backbone controller. But this update, with a bigger screen and support for multiple games at the same time, sounds very good.
- Amazon’s new Echo Spot. To me, that’s just the right balance of things for an Alexa speaker. It’s small, costs $45 (right now), has a touchscreen but no camera, and is just the right size for a nightstand. I keep promising to leave my phone outside the bedroom and maybe this will replace it.
- With Sun. A woman loses her husband but gets a robot from his tech company to help her. A surprise follows. Such a good premise! And by all accounts, this show continues Apple TV Plus’ streak of sci-fi stuff. I’ll definitely be catching up before episode 3 comes out on Wednesday.
- Openvibe. Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads and Nostr, all in one timeline in one app. This is basically a clever hack, not the interconnected social universe of my dreams, but it’s a pretty good hack! And I love that it basically hides which network people are using; they’re just people, on a timeline.
- Pestle. I love a good recipe app. I mostly use Crouton and Mela, but Pestle’s new ability to import recipes from Instagram Reels is pretty awesome. Just enter the link, give it a name, and it will turn a video into a set of ingredients and steps.
Split screen
A million years ago, I was an intern at by wire, and one of the stories I helped work on was this wild thing where a writer had decided to disappear completely and see if the internet could find him. The story turned out great, and the writer was Evan Ratliff, who has been one of my favorite reporters ever since. He co-founded The atavist Magazine and did a ton of great work there, created awesome Personal podcast, and until recently, was one of the co-hosts of Long form, the journalism podcast I’ve always dreamed I might be invited to one day. Alas.
Now Evan has a new podcast, called Shell game, in which he uses an AI clone of his voice to cause all kinds of chaos in his life. The first episode is impressive, and I’m very excited about what comes next. I asked Evan to share his homescreen with us to see if he had any podcast tricks I could steal, and to see how his AI-connected life had become.
Here’s Evan’s home screen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
Phone: iPhone 13 Mini.
Wall paper: The one I sent here is my cat Henry, an 18-year-old icon who was once a mini-Vine celebrity and is the sweetest creature on earth. (It’s usually my kids, but I don’t allow their photos on the open internet.)
Applications: Google Maps, Photos, Apple Notes, Slack, Settings, Clock, Phone, WhatsApp, Signal, Freedom, Google Translate, CloudBeats, Scrivener, Instapaper, Spotify, TuneIn, Libby, Gmail, Google Calendar, Messages, Brave.
My home screen rules are no social media, no news. I’m a certified news junkie, but at least I want it out of sight. And no Twitter app on the phone, ever. As for some applications:
- Children [group]: One thing they don’t tell you about parenting in the 2020s is how many school, camp, and bus apps you’re forced to buy and check.
- Ships / planes: The only AR apps I’ve ever used. I feel like a magician just telling Flightradar24 in the sky or MarineTraffic at sea to see where ships and planes come and go. My father studies logistics and instilled in me a curiosity about how things go from one place to another.
- CloudBeats: Essential for listening to podcast drafts while running and walking around; with Shell game in production, sometimes I’m on this thing for hours a day.
- LIBYA: Any New Yorker who doesn’t have it is missing out. You can get ebooks and audiobooks from the library and listen to them here!
- Instapaper: Anyone else still using Instapaper out there? I don’t even know who owns this anymore. But it’s still how I read the long stuff I’ve saved.
I also asked Evan to share some things he cares about right now. Here’s what he shared:
- moss I made a moss garden this year and am into all things moss related. Websites on how to maintain it and its incredible properties, moss gurus (eg Mossin’ Annie). Moss!
- New Charley Crockett Album. Just a genius songwriter and singer, with an incredible story. Perfect listening while walking on your moss (which you need).
- Currently under review Braindead megaphonecollection of essays by George Saunders, parts of which are felt very much Shell game– relevant to me.
- My sister-in-law, who is 50 times more culturally aware than I am, turned us on to this British comedy show, Taskmaster. The perfect decompression after a day working alongside your AI doppelganger.
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 even more great recommendations, check out the answers to this post in Topics.
“I just wanted to share an app that (and this is a shock to me) no one knows about. called Check your inbox. The idea is very simple: it allows you to create your own inbox just for newspapers. I hate reading newsletters in my personal Gmail inbox and this is a very convenient solution to my problem.” – Dennis
“Just enjoyed all six episodes on Netflix Supacell. It’s like heroes but darker, set in South London, with an almost entirely black cast and directed by Rapman. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen this year and such a fresh take on a genre that’s basically been monopolized by Marvel.” – Guilherme
“I am currently reading The singularity is closer by Ray Kurzweil. We are fortunate to see human evolution in real time.” – Matthew
“Preparing the best ball Subdued fantasy. What was once a niche version of fantasy football is now an (absurdly?) popular sports betting format where players draft an entire team in an hour or less and then compete against outsiders. It’s like trying to win a March Madness bracket, but you draft a fantasy football roster.” – Noah
“Using VR exercise tracker app created by VR Health Institute. They use science-backed measurements of VR activity to help you measure your VR workouts. Connects to Apple Watch and other Bluetooth fitness devices.” – Dan
“As a new father, Dungeons & Daddies resonates with me in a special way. This (self-described non-BDSM) podcast delivers a hilarious twist D&D, following four fathers who navigate a fantasy realm to rescue their lost sons. It has made me laugh harder than I have in a long time and it has made me cry more than once. I’ve enjoyed the first season three times already (that’s more than 180 hours of listening) and I’m re-listening to the second season now.” – Sign
“I just bought one Boox Go 10.3 E Ink tablet and I’m really enjoying it. Very slim, beautifully designed, no front light and great enough to write on when needed. It’s meant more as a competitor to the Remarkable 2 (ie, a note-taking device), but I’m enjoying it for reading articles through Omnivore.” – Patrick
“I recently started reading a book called Deep work by Cal Newport on the merits of taking the time to focus on a task with minimal distractions. My focus, along with many others in recent years, has disappeared, so I picked up this book to try and correct my ability to focus deeply. – Dave
“Apple PenLite: iPad before iPad.” I’ve been watching Colin Holter’s channel for a few years now and love his stuff, but this video is really something different for him. He interviewed some former Apple employees and I thought it was really well done. I was really young during the time period in question, so I don’t remember any news about it, but it was very interesting to get this kind of perspective from the engineers and product managers who were working at Apple at the time.” -Ian
MEMORANDUM
I sincerely believe that “Each frame a painting” is the best YouTube series of all time. If you haven’t seen them, watch them all. (If you only watch one, watch it this for Edgar Wright. OR this for David Fincher. Or this one in Marvel movie soundtracks. Just watch them all!) So when the channel dropped its first video in seven years – a short trailer for a new limited series and short film — I immediately started refreshing the site every 10 minutes and rewatching every single thing on the channel all over again. It’s like going to high-speed film school, and I can’t recommend it enough. chair, all of you! Chair!