The best smartphone photos of the year

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 49, your usher to the champion and Verge-iest worldly successful the world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, anticipation you similar podcasts, and besides you tin work each the aged editions astatine the Installer homepage.) 

I besides person for you a clump of caller podcasts that each launched this week for immoderate reason, immoderate astonishing smartphone photos, a crushed to deed the movie theatre this weekend, and a caller doorbell to regenerate your aged doorbell.

And successful the tone of this unexpectedly podcast-filled week, I person a question: who’s your favourite lesser-known creator? We each cognize and emotion Veritasium and MKBHD, but I privation to perceive astir each the ones that merit conscionable arsenic overmuch shine. YouTube, podcast, Instagram, instrumentality your prime — if they’re tech-y and Verge-ish, great, but if not, that’s great, too! Hit maine with 1 oregon 2 of your faves that you stake astir of america don’t know. I’ll stock immoderate of my faves, too.

All right, large week of amusive stuff. Let’s go.

(As always, the champion portion of Installer is your ideas and tips. What bash you privation to cognize much about? What awesome tricks bash you cognize that everyone other should? What app should everyone beryllium using? Tell maine everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you cognize idiosyncratic other who mightiness bask Installer, archer them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

Screen share

I speech to Liam James much than conscionable astir anybody different than my woman — and honestly, it’s a adjacent telephone betwixt the 2 of them. As The Verge’s supervising shaper for podcasts, we bash a ton of enactment togetber connected The Vergecast, and he’s besides conscionable a large elephantine tech nerd successful the champion way. He loves to brag astir his Plex server, seems to beryllium perpetually tweaking his homemade upwind station, and precocious described a caller to-do database app to maine arsenic “just OmniFocus for dummies.” What I’m saying is, helium is our people.

I asked Liam to stock his homescreen with america due to the fact that if I cognize 1 happening astir Liam, it’s that each azygous icon and determination has been exhaustively thought done and rigorously tested for optimal performance. Liam besides conscionable bought a Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which means he’s astir to acquisition a large power — truthful I figured it’d beryllium bully to seizure the extremity of his iPhone run.

Here’s Liam’s homescreen, positive immoderate info connected the apps helium uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro.

The wallpaper: I’ve utilized the aforesaid wallpaper for astir 10 years now. It’s a silly coating of my archetypal dog, August, successful the benignant of Kehinde Wiley.

The apps: Photos, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Apple News, Phone, Mail, Safari, Messages.

I besides asked Liam to stock a fewer things he’s into close now. Here’s what helium sent back:

Crowdsourced

Here’s what the Installer assemblage is into this week. I privation to cognize what you’re into close present arsenic well! Email installer@theverge.com oregon connection maine connected Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for thing and everything, and we’ll diagnostic immoderate of our favorites present each week. For adjacent much large recommendations, cheque retired the replies to this station connected Threads.

“I person recovered Dola indispensable. It’s escaped — what’s escaped anymore? It tin constitute to Apple Calendar and is disposable connected iMessage and WhatsApp; it’s incredibly utile arsenic my productivity and task tracker and astonishing for reminders.” — Andrew

“The Serpent Queen. This Starz amusement is astir 16th period Queen Catherine de’ Medici of France and her travails and triumphs. There is overmuch tribunal intrigue, possibly murdering, possibly poisoning, possibly a truly bully clip for the viewer. It is presently successful its 2nd play and stars Samantha Morton successful the main relation and brings successful Minnie Driver arsenic Queen Elizabeth I. Hilarity ensues.” — Romeo

“I’ve been utilizing this app called SAOViVO that is escaped and unfastened source, and what it does is: it takes videos successful your YouTube Channel, makes a queue retired of them, and sends them backmost to YouTube arsenic a unrecorded feed. An example: I enactment arsenic a advisor for newsrooms, and they person a large archive, truthful erstwhile the day of events comes, we tin marque unrecorded streams with the happening they did successful erstwhile years, oregon erstwhile idiosyncratic celebrated dies, we tin cheque retired the YouTube transmission and unrecorded watercourse the stories astir that person.” — Nicolas

“I person to urge a large caller YouTube transmission called Graindead. A precise deadpan transmission astir movie cameras. “Buying The Cheapest Cameras In Japan” is simply a must-watch. Full of Classic British self-deprecating humor. “A $1000 Lens Cap” is besides an absorbing watch.” — Owen

“Dress to Impress connected Roblox. It is similar Among Us successful the pandemic era, but for WFH ‘gurlies.’” — Sam 

“I americium headed connected a 5.5-hour formation to Hawaii, and I americium precise overmuch looking guardant to bringing the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 to, hold for it… play EA Sports FC the full way! Was inspired by a podcast I had listened to recently, I think…” — Richard

“People interest astir Chinese EVs coming to America, but radical should support an oculus connected Chinese crippled developers due to the fact that Black Myth: Wukong conscionable came out, and it has implicit 2 cardinal players connected Steam, shattering Elden Ring and Cyberpunk’s records.” — John

“Add Eddie is simply a elemental app for creating QR codes to your societal profiles, messengers, vCards, outgo services, websites, and more. It is simply a godsend for networking successful existent life, particularly arsenic a widget connected my phone’s homescreen and connected the Apple Watch.” — Dewa

“One of respective reasons I couldn’t usage thing other too Apple Music is that it’s the lone 1 with a euphony locker. I person uploaded tons of stuff: Commodore 64 remixes, missing KLF, Brian May and Jean-Michel Jarre albums, bootlegs, etc. The integration is great, excessively (if you person Apple stuff). It uploads and past syncs to each devices automagically similar immoderate different music.” — Mathias

”I’ve been speechmaking The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and I’m amazed I didn’t work it sooner! It’s truthful good, and I’m truthful funny to spot however it’s going to end!” — Flávio

Signing off

It’s phantasy shot season, which means an alarming magnitude of my property is astir to beryllium replaced by opinions connected NFL players’ play performance. I’m successful 2 leagues, some of them successful Yahoo’s app, which is… fine. And this year, I’m realizing however overmuch of a full-time occupation this worldly truly is; quality is dispersed astir truthful galore places, everybody has rankings and information astir those rankings and podcasts astir the information astir those rankings, and it’s each conscionable exhausting. 

Ironically, I deliberation I get the lawsuit for AI now? If I could conscionable say, “What’s happening with my phantasy squad this week,” and ChatGPT could archer me, I’d beryllium determination successful a heartbeat. Some of the apps are trying to imitate this — including Yahoo — but present that Twitter’s gone, it each feels much chaotic than ever. If you person an astonishing root for each this, archer maine astir it! No substance however overmuch attraction I pay, though, I ever look to travel successful sixth… truthful possibly I’ll conscionable permission it alone.

(Also, adjacent year: Installer phantasy league? Should we? I consciousness similar we should. It’d beryllium awesome.)

See you adjacent week!