Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 77, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, don’t forget to make your Venmo private, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about RISC and Ben Affleck and Google’s new search boss, installing a SodaStream because my can situation is getting out of control, binge-watching How I Met Your Mother along with the new rewatch pod, watching Dead Talents Society after my colleagues raved about it, reliving a decade of great music through one Benny Blanco interview, enjoying a huge uptick in new friends on Signal, and doing a lot of retro racing in New Star GP.
I also have for you a terrific new Apple TV Plus show, a deep dive into fax machines, the internet’s favorite new AI plaything, and much more. Kind of a light week this week, honestly, but still lots to dig into. Let’s do it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)
- The Studio. I’ve been excited for this show — a comedy with Seth Rogen as a Hollywood exec who wants to make cool things but also doesn’t want to get fired — since I saw the first trailer. The first episode is excellent, and the reviews have been glowing. All the numbers say nobody watches Apple TV Plus, but it keeps having great stuff.
- Images in ChatGPT. This feature has made the internet super weird all week. I’ve seen and made some really cool, beautiful stuff, and also horrors I hoped to never encounter. This feels like a step beyond any image generation stuff I’ve seen before.
- The Twelve South AirFly Pro 2. This is one of those accessories that shouldn’t need to exist, but I’m glad it does — a dongle for connecting Bluetooth headphones to seat-back screens, old-school audio systems, and more. The new model has better sound and faster pairing, which almost makes the $59.99 price tag tolerable.
- “Beyond ‘I’m Back’: How the Fax Machine Sent Sports to the Future.” This is a really fun blast from the past about how fax machines intersected with some of the biggest moments in the history of sports, and how a now-quaint technology was, for so many years, a huge leap forward. The nostalgia is off the charts.
- Vivaldi. An excellent browser with a great new feature: a built-in VPN courtesy of Proton. It’s never super difficult to get a VPN, but baking this in for free and as part of your browser account makes things easy. One to keep installed, even if it’s not your daily driver.
- Paul American. I cannot, in good conscience, tell you it’s a good idea to watch an eight-episode Max documentary about the Paul brothers that almost seems like a parody of itself. All I can tell you is that I will watch every single second of it.
- Side Quest. Now this I can happily recommend! Mythic Quest is one of my favorite comedies (another win for Apple TV Plus, somehow) and has always been at its best doing one-off bottle episodes. This is just that, but even more, and takes place in part inside the world of the games we’ve been hearing about all these episodes.
- Atomfall. A postapocalyptic survival game set in some extremely British locales, with a big world and a big story? I don’t always love a wander-around game, but this sounds like my kind of wandering.
Marina Galperina joined The Verge a few weeks ago as a senior tech editor and immediately started asking extremely fun questions. Questions like, “shouldn’t we do a thing about bird flu?” And “did you know that I once sold a Vine at an art fair?” (And “David, why are all your sentences so bad?”) What I’m saying is, she fit right in.
Marina’s been covering tech and science for a while, but I wasn’t sure if she was a true gadget-head or not. So I asked Marina to share her homescreen with us, to see if I could figure it out. Here it is, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 14 Pro. The screen is kind of crushed, but generally, it’s a fine device and actually fits in my hand!
The wallpaper: It’s a Gothko! Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Black on Gray) that I saw at the Guggenheim years ago. It took me a minute to find the real one online, because before, I used to have to only worry about images of “Rothko-style” copycat prints, and now it’s all this AI garbage stinking up search results. I wanted that specific black on gray thing.
The apps: Way of Life, Photos, Apple Notes, Messenger, Google Sheets, Camera, Signal, Clock, Momence, Apple Fitness, Expense, Google Maps, Slack, YouTube, WhatsApp, Hue, Pocket, Chase, Bluesky, Messages, Phone, Safari, Gmail.
Clearly, I’m really into gamified fitness right now. The Verge’s Victoria Song turned me onto both Apple Fitness and Ladder, and I’m sort of oscillating between the two. I only still have Twitter as an occupational hazard. Otherwise it would be gone. The best (only good?) social network is Letterboxd.
Way of Life — I should explain that one, because it sounds like a cult manual. It’s just a very simple habit tracker that doesn’t just count multiple streaks but generates handy little graphs and charts to visualize your W v. L day ratios. Gamify everything.
I also asked Marina to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:
- I enjoyed reading Acts of Desperation recently, by Megan Nolan — a good book about a bad relationship.
- I’m still thinking about Companion even though I gave it only three stars on Letterboxd, but a solid three stars. More of an extended metaphor than a believable sci-fi flick, but satisfying.
- I haven’t actually gamed much lately since I started this job, and I’m holding out for Silksong. Previously, I actually printed out a map of Hollow Knight on four sheets of paper taped together and crossed off the bosses as I beat them, which is kind of weird. I’m a completionist. I’ll play, like, one game at a time, but to death.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@.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 great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Bluesky and this post on Threads.
“As Formula 1 season begins, it’s worth mentioning that the best way of following the sport live or through replays for true F1 fans is by using the incredibly cool MultiViewer app. It enables you to use multiple streams and get live timing and tons of other data in real time. An F1 T V subscription is needed, and it also works for IndyCar, NASCAR and WEC.” – David
“This week, I discovered GetInvoice, a tool that extracts invoices and receipts from your emails and web portals. Has saved our company a huge amount of time for tax season.” – Miki
“Amazon’s lockdown of book downloads convinced me to download all my books from various services and put them on a self-hosted server, accessible from my Kobo. So thanks for the nudge, Bezos!” – Dan
“I wanted to recommend Lunatask, which might be the ultimate platform for life tracking. It works cross platform, and it is end-to-end encrypted. It has already replaced Todoist for me, but that’s not all: it also has a Notes tab, which can be connected to your calendar or tasks. It has a journaling space, a mood tracker, a habit tracker, and a relationships tracker (you can get reminders to reach out to your friends to maintain your real-life connections).” – Matin
“Watched Khakee: The Bengal Chapter (available on Netflix) this week. Very good.” – Rahul
“I started using the iOS Journal app and reflecting on my day every day. I don’t write, like, an actual diary, but more looking back at the day to see how productive I am or if I did everything from my to-do list. So far, it helps a lot!” – Colin
“Among the many subscription-based meditation apps, there’s this lesser-known Healthy Minds Program, made by actual scientists and pretty customizable. You can pick your own meditation time for any specific lesson, for example. And it’s completely free.” – Liviu
“Been diving into ‘new’ Game Boy games after getting a ModRetro Chromatic. Besides the official games (my favorites are Dragonyhm and Hermano so far), there are a ton of polished games on itch.io and from other publishers. I had no idea.” – Justin
“I started using Runna to train for a local marathon and was impressed with its commitment to training plans. It gives off a far more serious vibe than Runkeeper (my previous favorite) or the Nike Run app, but it comes with a serious price tag. So far, I’m digging it — but skeptical it’s worth the $.” – Tyler
I talk a lot in this newsletter about some of the things I care too much about. Note-taking apps, for one. Bad shows and movies about cool spies, to name another. But there’s one I don’t talk about much here, and that is my deep and abiding obsession with snacks. Like, I’m the guy who combs the blogs looking for the best finds at Trader Joe’s (Unexpected Cheddar Cheese Spread and the Elote Corn Chip Dippers, you’re welcome), and who will happily try any weird variety of Goldfish or Oreo just in case it’s amazing.
I say this because, one, I want you to send me snack recommendations, and two, I discovered Cabel Sasser’s annual snack roundups and, through them, have both found a ton of good snacks and a new love for snack-related content. Maybe Installer will one day just be about snacks. Or maybe I’m just hungry. Either way, I’m here for all of the internet’s snack content.
