Hello, mates! Welcome to Installer No. 53, your information to the very best and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (When you’re new right here, welcome, so psyched you discovered us, and in addition you’ll be able to learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been studying about Beyoncé and Rosanna Pansino and Bowen Yang, pouring my life again into Todoist, watching the top of The Grand Tour, catching up on some My Brother, My Brother and Me episodes, seeing if the Pixel Recorder app can exchange my trusty voice recorder, and shifting Headspace to my homescreen to see if it helps me meditate extra. (Up to now… no.)
I even have for you a really wild new pair of AR glasses, a Batman-adjacent present on HBO, an important new e-book concerning the finish of Twitter, a humorous twist on social networks, and rather more. Lotta good new TV this week! Let’s do it.
(As all the time, the very best a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you tremendous into proper now? What ought to everybody else be studying / enjoying / watching / shopping for / downloading / constructing out of Legos proper now? Inform me all the things: installer@theverge.com. And if you understand another person who would possibly get pleasure from Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
- SocialAI. The response to this “social community” for iOS, the place you publish and a thousand AI bots instantly reply, was so humorous. Some folks cherished it, some hated it, half appeared to assume it was a joke. It’s not a joke, and it’s truly a very considerate tackle find out how to work together with LLMs. It additionally feels alarmingly much like being on precise social networks nowadays. Perhaps even higher.
- Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. A wonderful addition to the canon of books about Musk’s takeover and overhaul of the social community we as soon as knew. There’s a variety of nice new element in right here concerning the chaos of turning into X, too — a very good learn.
- Simple Snapchat. I’d like to inform you to purchase Snap’s new Spectacles, however they’re ridiculous and in addition not accessible for normal folks to purchase. However you will be capable of get Snapchat’s new design, which is a lot cleaner and extra approachable than the app has been in recent times. I’m undecided it’ll win many new customers, however Snapchat remains to be the most effective messaging apps on the market.
- The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds. The AirPods 4 obtained all of the shine this week, however I’ve been a fan of Bose’s earbuds for some time — they sound nice, they’ve nice battery, and I like the new “Hey headphones” wake word on the brand new mannequin. And at $179, these are a stable Apple various.
- Omni Loop. The learn on this time-travel film starring Ayo Edebiri and Mary-Louise Parker appears to be that sticklers for continuity can be pissed off however there’s some good and considerate stuff and a variety of enjoyable available. I can be having that enjoyable ASAP.
- The Penguin. “Gritty Batman present on HBO” is all you’ll want to inform me for me to be totally in on The Penguin. The evaluations thus far are a bit blended — I’ve seen “greatest present in without end” and “kinda meh,” and lots of people are evaluating it unfavorably to The Sopranos. Personally, I can’t wait.
- Tripsy 3.0. I’m touring quite a bit this fall, so I’m again on the hunt for a great place to place all my affirmation numbers, flight particulars, and bills. Tripit is ok, however Tripsy seems to be means higher. I’m additionally into the map view, which is a surprisingly useful option to plot out a day.
- Agatha All Along. WandaVision is the one Marvel present I like to recommend to individuals who don’t care about Marvel as a result of the entire thing was so unusually structured and good. This spinoff sounds just as inventive and just as cool. Extra Kathryn Hahn is all the time a great factor.
- UFO 50. A bunch of builders in 2024 determined to make a bunch of video games that appear like they’re from the Eighties. Taken collectively, what they made is sort of a historic doc about gaming but additionally simply, like, a bunch of actually enjoyable retro-style video games. Such a cool idea.
- “The Mark Zuckerberg Interview.” You in all probability noticed the images from final week of the Acquired podcast hosts interviewing Zuck on the Chase Heart in San Francisco. The ensuing 90-minute episode is… sort of awkward in spots but additionally actually revealing in spots. I don’t assume I’ve heard Zuckerberg discuss by his personal historical past as a CEO like this earlier than.
Display screen share
Alex Goldman, the superb podcaster and former cohost of best-tech-pod-ever Reply All, has a brand new present! It’s known as Hyperfixed, and principally, Alex’s job is to repair folks’s issues of all types. The primary two episodes are foolish and deep, and this present goes to be nice.
I requested Alex to share his homescreen with us as his new present launches as a result of if there’s one factor I learn about Alex, it’s that he’s an individual of many pursuits and obsessions. (I all the time loved him posting about songs he made in his attic, simply to call one instance.) I used to be curious what his telephone would say about what he’s as much as proper now.
Right here’s Alex’s homescreen, plus some information on the apps he makes use of and why:
The wallpaper: An image of my children being cool on the seashore.
The apps: Digicam, Climate, Settings, Notes, App Retailer, FaceTime, Amazon, Proton Mail, Discover My, Overcast, Patreon, Koala, Messages, Google Voice, Gmail, Safari.
I do know my homescreen is a multitude, however I’ve lengthy since given up on making an attempt to prepare it. It has reached an uneasy stasis through which I do know the place all the things is, and it’s been some time since I’ve downloaded a fully important new app.
Every little thing I want is on the entrance web page: from video games to train stuff, apps for watching TV and enjoying music, social media platforms, and so forth. My go-to apps are Notes (each morning, I make a bulleted listing of issues I have to get achieved), Voice Memos (it’s tremendous handy when you’re considering of an thought or a great melody pops into your head to simply go forward and document it earlier than it’s lengthy gone) and Threes. Threes is a sport the place you attempt to mix blocks of the identical quantity on a enjoying discipline with out operating out of house, and I’ve actually not gotten additional prior to now three or 4 years, however I nonetheless play it like 4 instances a day. Simply out of nervous behavior. After which Overcast is the podcast app. Every little thing else is lame compared.
I additionally requested Alex to share a number of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he despatched again:
- Pinball Map. I like pinball. However loving pinball means you’re a pinball snob and you want sure video games higher than others. For me, the mid-’90s Halfway/Williams pinball video games had been a renaissance, so I’m consistently looking for copies of Assault From Mars, Medieval Insanity, Twilight Zone, Monster Bash, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Bride of Pinbot. Luckily, the Pinball Map helps me find them.
- Koala. Koala is an extremely highly effective sampler app. You possibly can document sounds immediately off your telephone or load sounds in, or rip sound immediately from a video. It has almost all of the performance of the traditional Roland SP-404 Samplers, besides these are $500, however Koala is round $5.
- Erica Synths’ LXR-02. An inexpensive handheld drum machine that you may load sounds on to or make sounds with. I’m very a lot a dude making little beats on public transit.
- WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. A weblog for a nonprofit radio station in New York Metropolis that was shut down virtually a decade in the past however is filled with unbelievable obscure recordings, comics, and weird tradition tales. Most likely most well-known for being the one place you’ll find the story of how Paul Simon allegedly stole a bunch of songs on Graceland from Los Lobos.
Crowdsourced
Right here’s what the Installer group is into this week. I wish to know what you’re into proper now as effectively! E mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Sign — @davidpierce.11 — along with your suggestions for something and all the things, and we’ll characteristic a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, take a look at the replies to this post on Threads.
“Humorous timing that you simply’d point out Quick Movie YouTube three days after I found a channel that’s a horror treasure trove. The channel is known as Vintage Eight, which is by a movie professor from the College of New Orleans by the title of Paul Catalanotto. His hottest movies are The Tangi Virus, The Oracle Project, and The Human Trial, that are additionally conveniently extra interconnected than different movies on the channel.” — Drake
“Hild is the very best historic fiction I’ve ever learn in my complete life. Anybody jonesing for Sport of Thrones however IRL (ish) who can be a fan of Tolkien’s references to historic languages of Britain / Anglos / Saxons / previous Norse will find it irresistible.” — Christopher
“Caravan SandWitch is a superb cozy sport. It’s on all the things and is simply beautiful.” — Iain
“Performed round with NotebookLM from Google. One enjoyable however useful use case is to take analysis papers and generate podcasts. I’ve been studying a bunch of advanced ML papers as an engineering scholar, so I convert them into podcasts and pay attention on my commute. Definitely attention-grabbing TTS utility.” — Kruti
“In the latest newsletters, somebody advisable the No Rolls Barred YouTube channel however uncared for to say their greatest content material: Blood on the Clocktower. It’s a social deduction sport by The Pandemonium Institute for 7–20 (!!) gamers. Suppose like Werewolf or Mafia, however extra enjoyable. There’s limitless content material on YouTube that I can’t cease watching, and I like internet hosting large events for it.” — Greg
“With In the present day in Tabs on hiatus, Caitlin Dewey’s publication Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends has turn into essentially the most reliable curated studying listing round. (Additionally don’t miss her glorious 10-year retrospective of G*mergate.)” — Kevin
“After years of loyalty to Things 3, I bit the bullet and moved over to Todoist. Pure language enter is an enormous issue, but additionally fed up with lengthy lists in Issues — kanban in Todoist breaks issues up properly. I do miss the UI of Issues although.” — Scott
“It’s been nice following together with RocketJump on their Patreon as they write, plan, and produce their impartial action-comedy movie! They go actually in-depth on all the things from location planning to studio pitch decks.” — Josh
“I can’t cease enjoying Astro Bot. It seems like a love letter to 30 years of PlayStation, and having been a PlayStation fan my complete life, each stage simply places a smile on my face.” — Nick
Signing off
On Wednesday, I used to be on the Made on YouTube occasion in New York Metropolis (the gang was made up of me and like 200 extraordinarily cool and enjoyable creators), the place CEO Neal Mohan and a bunch of different executives rolled out some new options. However overlook the brand new options — absolutely the spotlight of the occasion was the singer / songwriter / creator D4vd, who talked about an AI challenge after which did a stay efficiency of his mega-popular tune, “Here With Me.” It was superior, and I’ve been studying about and watching his movies ever since. Right here’s a great GQ interview with plenty of particulars on his story, here’s his TikTok, and here’s his YouTube channel.
To be truthful, D4vd is already very fashionable, so perhaps I’m the final one to find him. However I figured I’d share simply in case. I’m an enormous fan.