Hi, mates! Welcome to Installer No. 121, your information to the finest and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new right here, welcome, good luck in the Elite Eight, and likewise you can learn all the outdated editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been studying about Will Wright and sync music and the smartphone principle of every thing, selecting up The Soul of a New Machine once more after listening to that Tracy Kidder died, including SNL UK to my weekly YouTube clip rotation, watching all my favourite issues collide when Hilary Duff went on Hot Ones, transferring all my music into Parachord, enjoying with the NewsBlur Android beta, listening to the new podcast from the Serial people, enjoying a bunch of Ball x Pit on my cellphone, and attempting desperately to kick this silly chilly.
I even have for you an app to make your travels simpler, a weird and pleasant new present to watch, a brand new cause to play an outdated Mario recreation, and far more. Let’s do it.
(As at all times, the finest a part of Installer is your concepts and ideas. What are you watching / studying / enjoying / downloading / vibe-coding this week? Tell me every thing: installer@theverge.com. And if you know another person who would possibly take pleasure in Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)
- Flighty. Ordinarily I’d solely advocate Flighty to individuals who journey lots — it’s an incredible app, however not low-cost, and really a lot for energy customers. Right now, although, we may all use a little bit assist navigating safety strains, delays, and modifications. The new Airport Intelligence characteristic would possibly pay for itself fairly quick.
- Bait. The premise of this present — about an actor auditioning to be James Bond, and all the bizarre stuff that follows — is so totally internet-pilled and meta that it positively shouldn’t work. But at the least from what I’ve seen to this point, it utterly does. Though to be honest, I’ll watch Riz Ahmed in something.
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Like my colleague Andrew Webster says, it’s at all times time to get again into this recreation. The new Switch 2 replace comes with a bunch of recent ranges, boss battles, and characters — it’s not a ton of recent content material, however for me it was an awesome cause to principally begin the recreation over again. Zero regrets.
- The HTML Review concern 05. This on-line journal stays certainly one of the coolest issues getting into digital literature. This yr’s concern is, as at all times, full of lovely writing and cartoons and interactive design — the net is so cool, y’all.
- Dropzone 5.0 for Mac. My favourite apps are the ones that simply appear to be clearly a part of how your system at all times labored. Dropzone is like that: it’s simply a straightforward, customizable means to save / share / obtain / no matter all types of issues, simply by dragging a file or a hyperlink. The new design seems to be nice, and the app is simply so helpful.
- “The Ten Pounds Episode.” I discussed this present in passing final week, however there is one thing about Friends Keep Secrets that I simply can not cease watching. It’s a celeb podcast meets trashy actuality present, filmed and introduced in the most fascinating means. I don’t even know if I prefer it! But I’m hooked.
- Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. I’ve a listing of exhibits and films I believe may have been hits, besides they had been ruined by silly names. (The listing is named for Kevin Can F*ck Himself, an unimaginable present nobody watched.) This film is bizarre and enjoyable! I’d inform you to watch it if I may bear in mind the title.
- Notion 3.4. I proceed to assume Notion is a outstanding piece of software program that is simply gradual and annoying sufficient to make me always need to swap. But these are very nice modifications: tabs and heading upgrades, a vastly cleaner sidebar, archives in databases, and extra. Hey app builders all over the place? Give me fewer AI issues and extra updates like this.
Casey Liss and I are going to hand around in particular person certainly one of nowadays. He’s been certainly one of my favourite podcasters for years, as certainly one of the hosts of Accidental Tech Podcast. (Recent episodes are getting me dangerously shut to going all-in on self-hosting…) He’s additionally the developer of Callsheet, a terrific app for locating film info and the first-ever factor to be featured in Installer. He additionally lives like 90 minutes away from me. We need to lunch, Casey.
Anyway, I requested Casey to share his homescreen with us, curious to see how his many lives and occupations coalesce on his cellphone. Here it is, plus some data on the apps he makes use of and why:
The cellphone: iPhone 17 Pro, 512 GB, in no matter Apple calls “blue” this yr.
The wallpaper: Just a blueish gradient I set utilizing Apple’s personal instruments. Boring, I do know.
The apps: AnyList, Settings, Apple Notes, Apple Maps, Apple Music, Sonos, Overcast, Day One, Instagram, Indigo, Slack, WebNewsWire, Home Assistant, Callsheet, Due, Photos, Fastmail, Messages, Fantastical, Safari.
Plenty of what’s on my homescreen shouldn’t be stunning. The most stunning factor to me is a swap I made some time in the past: I switched from 4 semi-organized homescreens (and by no means utilizing Spotlight) to two homescreens, and utilizing Spotlight always. I additionally turned on huge icons as a result of I desire the aesthetics. The fundamental homescreen has climate at the high, and 16 of my most-used apps. (Speaking of aesthetics, staff light-in-the-day-and-dark-at-night.)
The second display screen has two widget stacks: photographs from today (from the Photos app and Widgetsmith), Fantastical and Parcel, a small Foodnoms widget, and 4 different regularly used apps. The apps are Pushover, which receives push notifications I ship myself from apps like Home Assistant, n8n, and extra; Sports Alerts for sports activities scores, Banktivity for monetary monitoring, and UniFi Protect to see cameras at dwelling.
After being a religious Spotify particular person for without end, I ultimately converted to Apple Music, because it is a part of the Apple One bundle. It’s… effective. I’m additionally an enormous Sonos fan, and have 5 rooms in the home with some type of speaker in it. I virtually by no means AirPlay to them, and as an alternative, use the app. They’re principally via the darkish days of 2025 now, fortunately.
Since covid, I’ve journaled principally day by day. This sounds very fancy, however in actuality, it’s often only a transient entry with some photograph I’ve taken throughout the day. I’ve used Day One for this without end, and haven’t any intention to give up.
The purple-ish icon with the lowercase “i” is Indigo, a forthcoming app from my mates Ben McCarthy and Aaron Vegh that I’m beta testing. It’s a unified Mastodon and Bluesky shopper that interleaves the two timelines as one. It’s actually nice, and has made it a lot much less burdensome to sustain with each my nerds (Mastodon) and common folks (Bluesky). I exploit WebNewsWire as my RSS reader, the place I get a ton of each nerdy and native information. Thanks to my The Verge membership, I lastly have full-text RSS for right here, as effectively! 🤩
The clapperboard is my app, Callsheet! Imagine if IMDB was written and designed by somebody who… effectively… cares. Instead of people who find themselves simply attempting to funnel you into shopping for junk on Amazon. Or auto-playing movies. Or begging you to log in once more. Callsheet tries to sit in the identical area as IMDB, however it’s designed with folks in thoughts. It’s designed to be quick, to reply no matter query you could have, after which get out of your means.
Next to Callsheet is Due, which I stay by. Due will frequently re-remind you of issues till you clear that activity. It’s as shut as I get to any type of formal activity administration system.
Finally, my spouse and I are all-in on Apple Photos, and Shared Photo Library. It’s been surprisingly bulletproof for us.
I additionally requested Casey to share a number of issues he’s into right now. Here’s what he despatched again:
- I’m an unapologetic Scrubs fan, and I used to be very nervous about the reboot. As I write this, we’re a number of episodes in, and… it appears actually good! They’ve at the least acknowledged a lot of the issues about the authentic Scrubs that didn’t age effectively, and are additionally taking characters in new instructions.
- I’m a Vision Pro proprietor — it was for my work, I swear! — and I watched the Raye Concert for One when it was new a pair years in the past. I just lately performed her album My twenty first Century Blues; it guidelines. I really feel like everybody knew this however me.
- I just lately stumbled onto the slowest — however coolest — web site on the web. The Auto Catalog Archive, which has brochures from zillions of automobiles.
Here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I need to know what you’re into right now as effectively! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — together with your suggestions for something and every thing, 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 put up on Threads and this put up on Bluesky.
“I’m playing a bunch of Pokémon ROM hacks (like Eternal X and Renegade Platinum) on my AYN Thor and having the absolute time of my life.” — NEAL
“Giving Noteful a try on iPad. It’s good and full of a lot of nice features. But I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to totally ditch pen and paper.” — Nick
“Big into the Bambu Printer A2. Looking for good 3D prints!” – Zach
“Watching The Capture on BBC iPlayer which is very very good and I recommend. Massively into my MacBook Neo, which I bought sans Touch ID because you can enable sign in via Apple Watch.” — Nathan
“I can’t imagine I missed the name for pocket book feedback! For what it’s price, Beechmore Books is the undisputed champ of paper that doesn’t bleed via. I haven’t discovered any (aside from devoted sketchbooks) that do it as effectively. And it’s usually comparable to Leuchtturm1917. I now have one on recurring order with Amazon. “ — Bruce
“I put on a Bulova Computron. Specifically the black and crimson one. It’s superb. Like a lil ‘90s alarm clock radio on my wrist.” — Aidan
“Continuing to play with my Synology NAS setup with things like Plex, Jellyfin, the ARR suite, etc… to be prepared for the subscription apocalypse and re-rise of physical media.” — Jamison
“With all the hubbub around the new episode, I FINALLY made time to watch The Amazing Digital Circus. Tons of fun (and psychological torment), I hope indie animation keeps on growing more powerful.” – Hanna
“I found a fantastic E Ink reader, the Xteink X4. Its main features are that it’s pocket-sized and it doesn’t help any DRM. Carrying all my books on an e-reader that matches in my pocket is one thing else. You may even flash its firmware with an open-source mission that makes it even higher!“ — Alric
“I recommend you take a look at Brad Dowdy at The Pen Addict. (Start along with his Top Five Pens listing.) He additionally has a protracted working podcast, additionally referred to as The Pen Addict.” — Dan
I found a web site referred to as Obsolete Sounds this week, and instantly fell in love. It is precisely what it seems like: a trove of sounds you by no means hear anymore, from a winding pocket watch to a number-crunching calculating machine to melting glacier ice. Fully half of those must be become white-noise machines.
And truly, to that finish: Cities and Memory, the group that hosts Obsolete Sounds, hosts an (I believe) annual occasion wherein it opens up its sound library to anybody who needs to play with and remix them. Listening again to the submissions from final yr is a visit. Seeing each what folks document, and what others do with these seemingly mundane sounds, is already altering how I hear the world round me. So cool.