Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 52, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I swear I don’t always just share absurdly expensive gadgets, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you some expensive but excellent new gadgets, a couple of great new tech podcasts, the best pause music ever, a new game that will take over your weekend, and much more. Let’s dig in.
(As
always,
the
best
part
of
Installer
is
your
ideas
and
tips.
What
are
you
into
right
now?
What
should
everyone
else
be
watching,
reading,
playing,
building,
buying,
or
singing
in
the
car?
Tell
me
everything:
The Drop
The
PS5
Pro.
I
can’t
imagine
spending
$700
on
any
game
console,
let
alone
one
with
no
disc
drive.
That
said,
I
do
love
the
idea
of
flying
around
in
Spider-Man
2
— the
only
game
I
love
to
just
aimlessly
explore
for
hours
at
a
time
– with
perfect
graphics
at
blistering
frame
rates. Technically
this
isn’t
up
for
preorder
for
a
couple
of
weeks,
but
I’m
sharing
it
now
because
we’re
all
going
to
need
to
start
saving
money
ASAP.
The
AirPods
4
with
ANC.
I’m
sure
the
iPhone
16
is
fine,
but
to
my
mind,
this
is
the
most
exciting
thing
Apple
launched
this
week
—
a
set
of
open-ear
headphones
with
decent
noise
cancellation
is
a
rare
and
exciting
thing.
(The
AirPods
Pro
hearing
aid
stuff
is
also
extremely
cool.)
The
Huawei
Mate
XT.
This
is
the
phone
of
the
week.
I
can’t
stop
watching
the
video
of
the
trifold,
which
gives
intense
Westworld
tablet
vibes,
in
the
best
possible
way.
You
probably
can’t
buy
it,
and
at
$2,800,
you
probably
wouldn’t
want
to
anyway,
but
I
love
that
this
thing
exists.
Will
&
Harper.
I
keep
hearing
great
things
about
this
doc,
in
which
Will
Ferrell
and
Harper
Steele
drive
across
the
country
and
try
to
make
sense
of
their
relationship
after
Steele
came
out
as
trans.
There’s
a
great
New
York
Times
interview
with
them
about
the
process,
too.
Channels
with
Peter
Kafka.
Nobody
does
insidery
tech
media
pods
like
Kafka,
so
I
was
psyched
to
see
him
back
on
the
digital
airwaves
once
again.
(I
guess,
disclosure,
he’s
making
the
show
with
Vox
Media,
The
Verge’s
parent
company.)
The
first
episode,
with
New
Yorker
editor
David
Remnick,
was
a
good
one.
Panic
World.
Another
great
new
podcast!
Ryan
Broderick
writes
one
of
my
absolute
favorite
newsletters
about
the
internet,
Garbage
Day,
and
the
first
episode
of
the
podcast
has
the
same
“smart
but
borderline
unhinged”
vibe
to
it.
It’s
delightful.
Warhammer
40,000:
Space
Marine
2.
I’m
a
pretty
simple
gamer.
I
like
games
where
I
get
to
battle
with
and
/
or
against
cool
robots,
and
I
love
when
everything
is
needlessly
intense
and
gory.
All
of
which
is
to
say,
I’m
confident
I
will
find
the
latest
Warhammer
installment
utterly
ridiculous
and
delightful
—
just
as
everyone
else
seems
to.
“Goldeneye
Watch
Music.”
This
song
is
100
percent
guaranteed
to
be
on
my
Spotify
Wrapped
this
year,
just
based
on
this
week
alone.
The
epic
pause
music
from
an
all-time
great
game
is
now
six
minutes
long,
super
high-def,
and
constantly
on
repeat
while
I
work.
iFixit’s
FixHub
Smart
Soldering
Iron.
I
trust
The
Verge’s
Sean
Hollister
completely
when
it
comes
to
techie
DIY,
and
he
loves
iFixit’s
super-portable,
super-simple
tool
for
all
things
liquid
metal.
It’s
not
cheap,
but
it
sounds
like
a
heck
of
a
lot
of
fun.
Chrome
Tab
Groups
on
iOS.
A
tiny
but
really
welcome
browser
upgrade:
you
can
now
sync
tab
groups
from
your
computer
to
your
iPhone.
(It
already
worked
on
Android.)
Tab
management
on
mobile
is
generally
trash,
and
tab
groups
are
a
really
good,
not-quite-bookmarks
way
to
keep
things
in
order.
Screen share
When I mentioned a couple of months ago how much I liked Andrew Bosworth’s idea of “Inbox Ten,” which focuses on ending every day not finished with everything but in a manageable place, I heard from a bunch of you who liked the approach, too. Bosworth’s system is simple and straightforward but also a good way to keep a lot of things in order.
When he’s not a productivity blogger, Bosworth (everybody calls him Boz) is the CTO of Meta. He’s been there a hair shy of two decades and right now seems to spend a lot of his time thinking about AI, AR, headsets, the metaverse, and apparently all of the other 60 million things Meta is up to these days.
I asked Boz to share his homescreen to see how he manages it all and what else he might be thinking about. Here’s Boz’s homescreen — he’s a company man! — plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: I actually have two phones, an Android and an iPhone; my work phone is an Android, and that’s where I have beta versions of our apps to dogfood. I’ve always been into smaller phone form factors, so I’m currently using a Motorola Razr Plus for work, but I did have to go in for the iPhone 15 Pro because I love the wide-angle camera.
The wallpaper: My lockscreen is a composite of photos I took of the solar eclipse in 2017. My homescreen wallpaper is a valley oak that is special to my wife and me, at the property in Carmel Valley where we got married.
The apps: Savant, Alarm.com, Authy, 1Password, Siedle, Unity Video, Find My, Clock, Tidal, Asana, Noom, Settings, Mercedes Me Connect, Bill, Meta Horizon, Meta View, Messages, Phone, Camera, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Instagram, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Safari.
Definitely a one-screen guy so I try to keep all my most used apps on one screen with no folders. If they aren’t there, I just search for them.
My homescreen is more or less apps by frequency of use, with the apps at the bottom left used most often and toward the top right used less often. Communication roughly in the lower-left segment, home things upper left, media lower right, and miscellaneous upper right.
I also asked Boz to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
I’m
a
huge
photography
buff
and
I’ve
really
gotten
into
developing
my
own
film
lately
using
a
Lab-Box.
I’ve
been
shooting
a
lot
with
film
cameras,
including
a
medium
format
Mamiya
C330
Professional
and
Hasselblad
500C/M
—
then
I
scan
to
digital
from
there.
I
also
collect
and
shoot
with
rare
or
unusual
lenses
and
am
in
the
early
stages
of
building
my
own
lens,
but
still
very
much
in
the
design
phase,
and
this
will
likely
take
me
a
while
to
execute.
I
have
young
kids,
so
a
lot
of
my
time
revolves
around
transporting
them
to
various
activities
and
locations,
but
I
really
enjoy
the
time
I
spend
with
them
and
the
people
who
support
them
in
all
their
myriad
pursuits.
I’ve
got
glasses
on
the
mind
—
I’ve
been
talking
about
the
challenges
we’ve
overcome
building
our
first
working
AR
glasses
prototype,
and
I’m
very
excited
about
them,
as
is
Mark
[Zuckerberg].
We’ve
seen
the
success
and
appeal
of
displayless
smart
glasses
with
AI
built
into
them
with
the
Ray-Ban
Meta
Smart
Glasses,
and
the
prototype
we’ve
built
is
on
the
other
end
of
that
spectrum,
where
you
now
also
have
a
wide
FOV
display
in
a
true
glasses
form
factor.
That,
coupled
one
day
with
always-on
sensors
and
contextualized
AI,
will
be
a
game-changer
for
personal
computing,
and
we
can’t
wait
to
share
more
on
that
work
in
the
coming
weeks.
Crowdsourced
Here’s
what
the
Installer
community
is
into
this
week.
I
want
to
know
what
you’re
into
right
now
as
well!
Email
“I’ve recently picked up a pair of the brand-new IK Multimedia MTM MKII studio monitors, and I am BLOWN AWAY by the quality of the sound. They’ve got to be the best-sounding ‘desk-friendly’ studio audio monitors available. They literally make me giddy by how full and rich and accurate they sound.” – Brooks
“I’m giving Mammoth a try, and it’s quickly becoming my favorite Mastodon client. It does a good job of combining the firehose with curated and algorithmic feeds. And the UI is nice.” – Joseph
“I’m running out of iCloud space at 200GB. I have 18,500 files in my Photos app, but Apple provides no way to tell which are larger. Turns out, the trial of the PowerPhotos Mac app lets you sort by size while your photos are still in the cloud! In my case, just 500 files take up 100GB. That’s honestly totally feasible to sort through manually and will give me back 50 percent of my storage!” – Nikolaj
“I’m basically just watching Chappell Roan’s VMA performance on repeat.” – Noah
“After the recent ebook versus paper book debate on The Vergecast, I wanted to point to Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. It’s a really fascinating dive into how digital reading affects the brain — with the latter half focused on childhood exposure. Definitely an important consideration!” – Brad
“No Rolls Barred, especially “Monopoly, but Communist.” The channel is all about playing board games, and they will also do classic games, but they add some rules or use the board game as a base and essentially make a completely new game that you can kind of relate to the original (“Monopoly, but Communist,” for example).” – Anthony
“Atlas Creed is a new indie author that I really enjoy. He self-published a crime thriller with some supernatural elements called Armitage, and it’s surprisingly killer. I listened to the audiobook, and the narrators do a great job! Not terribly important, but the inside cover for the hardcover is sick, too.” – Steve
“‘How to Monetize a Blog.’ Maybe read this article / commentary / art piece / disaster on desktop instead of mobile? It’s worth it.” – Hunter
“While reading the most recent issue, I thought of a video essay YouTube channel that I want to recommend. The channel is called Summoning Salt. It focuses on the history and techniques used to obtain world records in various video games. The videos are captivating, and the narrator does a fantastic job of keeping your attention. I highly recommend it.” – Grant
“After a successful playtest, friends and I have had our first session of Daggerheart this week. It’s a TTRPG, like D&D, from the folks at Critical Role. The mechanics are simpler, and it focuses on collaborative storytelling and quick decisions. It feels much lighter to play and it’s less load on the DM! Highly recommended for newbies, too!” – René
“I don’t usually buy new games at full price, but Astro Bot is awesome!” – Sam
Signing off
Sometimes I find myself in a brand-new corner of YouTube. Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, of course there are tons of people doing cool gardening tutorials on YouTube!” But sometimes, like what happened to me recently, it’s a total surprise. I’ve spent a lot of the last week or so on what I guess you’d call “Short Film YouTube” — it’s just an endless supply of short, simple movies on every topic and story you can imagine: horror flicks; inspirational shorts; extremely meta stories; action movies; stories about coffee runs with big-twist endings; student films; more student films; so many student films. I don’t know how I never thought to look for this before, but this is now my go-to way to relax when I have a few minutes to kill. And if you’ve never seen “Nothing, except everything,” you should. It’s a Short Film YouTube classic.
See you next week!
Original author: David Pierce