The headphones that replaced my AirPods

2 weeks ago 7

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 50, your usher to the champion and Verge-iest worldly successful the world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, I committedness it’s not ever this galore costly gadgets, and besides you tin work each the aged editions astatine the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been speechmaking astir crime rings and paleontology beefs and the unusual connection of TikTok, watching Kevin Can F**k Himself and Trap, re-upping my Yousician subscription to get backmost into the guitar, doing a batch of weird stretches aft spraining my finger, and trying to make the celebrated Levain cookies.

I besides person for you a clump of caller wearable gadgets, a caller Star Wars game, the instrumentality of a fabulous YouTube series, and overmuch more.

Also, I inactive privation to know: who’s your favourite lesser-known creator? I’ve gotten truthful galore large answers truthful far, but I privation to bash it REALLY large adjacent week with tons of large radical to cheque out. So support your favorites coming!

All right, large gadget-y week this week. Let’s excavation in.

(As always, the champion portion of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into close now? What should everyone other beryllium playing, reading, watching, eating, downloading, buying, oregon making retired of wood? Tell maine everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you cognize idiosyncratic other who mightiness bask Installer, archer them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The Shokz OpenRun Pro 2. I’ve had these for a week and they’re easy 1 of my favourite gadget upgrades of the twelvemonth truthful far. For day-to-day dog-walking and grocery-running and exercising headphones, I’ve been wholly converted to bony conduction implicit the people of this year. These caller ones person much bass, mercifully non-awful mics, longer battery, USB-C — I genuinely emotion them truthful far.
Star Wars Outlaws. I person been burned by truthful galore Star Wars games before, but this 1 sounds… well, if not similar the astir innovative crippled successful history, astatine slightest similar a earnestly bully time. And arsenic idiosyncratic who doesn’t emotion an endless open-world game, the slightly much rigid structure sounds cleanable for maine to dive into.
BeRreal Roulette. Are radical inactive utilizing BeReal? I honestly don’t know. But I emotion this idea: it’s the regular BeReal experience, but it grabs a changeable from your camera rotation and lets you respond to it arsenic you stock it. So clever, truthful precise dangerous.
The Dyson Airwrap i.d. Look, I don’t person capable hairsbreadth to accidental whether Bluetooth connectivity for “personalized curling routines” is anything, but I bash cognize that each azygous idiosyncratic I cognize with an Airwrap loves the happening to bits and volition astir apt similar the caller attachments.
“I consciousness arsenic anserine arsenic I look - Brilliant Labs Frame.” There’s really a batch of chill worldly successful these AR glasses, astatine slightest from a hardware perspective. But arsenic Linus and the Short Circuit folks find, the AI conscionable ain’t ready. I got mode excessively galore Rabbit and Humane vibes from this video.
The Garmin Fenix 8. Garmin’s ultrapremium smartwatches now travel with OLED screens, a mic and a speaker, and immoderate nifty messaging features. These are priced For Serious Outdoorspeople Only, but they’re beauteous compelling — and a month-plus of artillery beingness conscionable straight-up rules.
Anthropic Artifacts. As chatbots go, this is the coolest UI anyone has built yet. You tin usage Claude to physique thing and really spot it enactment and alteration successful existent clip adjacent to the chat; it makes the process of making things overmuch much collaborative and useful.
The Plaud NotePin. Another day, different AI dependable recorder thing. I inactive person nary thought if these volition ever beryllium really utile to astir people, but I’ve been investigating this $169 1 for a fewer days, and it’s beauteous bully astatine transcribing and summarizing immoderate nonsense I accidental into it each day. (And speaking of AI notes: Cleft Notes, 1 of my favorites, officially launched connected iOS this week.)
“The Sustained Two-Shot.” I mentioned my emotion for Every Frame a Painting a fewer weeks ago, and present they’re back! I get the consciousness this adjacent bid is going to beryllium precise meta since the EFAP duo is making their ain film, and I’m highly present for it.

Screen share

We made it to Installer 50! The archetypal day of Installer was 2 weeks ago, a information I missed entirely. Thank you truthful overmuch to everyone who has signed up, clicked links, sent maine recommendations, yelled astatine maine astir typos and formatting, and made beingness successful the Installerverse incredibly amusive implicit the past twelvemonth (and 2 weeks). I person large plans for twelvemonth 2 and hopefully tons and tons of amusive worldly to share.

My program has ever been to stock my ain setup successful this abstraction each 25 issues, which works retired to astir each six months. It’s a bully accidental to instrumentality banal of my ain setup and systems, but besides to stock what I’m learning and discovering arsenic Installer’s Downloader-in-Chief. (Here’s my erstwhile setup, from Installer #25.)

So here’s my homescreen arsenic it is close now, positive immoderate info connected the apps I’m utilizing and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro, with a surface progressively scratched to bits and that volition hopefully beryllium replaced — either by an iPhone 16 oregon a Pixel 9, depending connected however the adjacent fewer weeks spell — this fall.

The wallpaper: Still my woman and lad connected the lockscreen, but a caller representation of the small dude connected the homescreen. I’ve been moving the iOS 18 beta each summer, which means I’m yet escaped from the anserine app grid, which made tons of caller photos into plausible options. This one’s my fave.

The apps: Readwise Reader, Kindle, Maps, Day One, Spotify, Phone, Pocket Casts, Camera, Messages, Fantastical, Capacities, Arc.

I person go a customized icon convert, and there’s conscionable nary going back. This battalion is the Vera Icon Pack from Vuk Andric, which I bought for $4 and similar precise much. Dark icons are the champion icons.

My most-used apps haven’t truly changed since past time, but I person less of them connected the surface now.

I’m successful the midst of my longest journaling streak of each clip successful Day One, and it’s wholly due to the fact that I changed the regular punctual to “what did you bash today?” which feels truthful overmuch lower-stakes than astir journaling that I find myself doing it overmuch much happily.
I americium desperately trying to discontinue Spotify, which has gotten bloated and costly and conscionable worse over time. I don’t cognize wherever to spell yet… but I’m moving connected that.
The Calendar widget is from Apple Calendar due to the fact that each the different calendar apps I tried required maine to unfastened them excessively often conscionable to refresh the widget. This one’s not beautiful, but it’s astatine slightest up to date.
The “Comms” and “Content” folders are moving truly good for me. Any benignant of communication: Comms! (Comms is besides the lone folder allowed to person badges oregon notifications.) All my quality / games / endless scrolling apps spell successful Content. I usage Spotlight hunt for everything else.
I’m similar 2 weeks into investigating Capacities for each my notes and projects, and truthful far, my reappraisal is “it’s Notion but uglier but way faster.” I’m into it truthful far.

I stock each week what I’m into close now, but present are a fewer I don’t deliberation I’ve mentioned present precocious that I highly recommend:

I emotion Tom Wolfe’s penning but someway had ne'er work The Right Stuff before. Good lord is this publication great. (It’s astir astronauts and combatant pilots and what it takes to determine to hazard your beingness for the skies.) Apparently, immoderate of the details are, ahem, somewhat overdone, but adjacent if it’s axenic fiction, it’s inactive a heck of a story.
I started watching Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE more oregon little by accident, walking into the country close aft my woman started it. But this K-pop contention show, which turns retired to really beryllium astir fandom and fame and the net and successful places gets profoundly bleak and hard to watch, hooked maine immediately, and I’ve been reasoning astir it nonstop each week.
I utilized to play a batch of Retro Bowl — astir apt excessively overmuch Retro Bowl — connected my phone. Now I’m trying to bash little of everything connected my phone, truthful I dropped $5 connected the Switch mentation of the game. Bigger screen, amended controls, aforesaid absurdly amusive game. No notes.

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 than I could acceptable here, cheque retired the replies to this station connected Threads.

“As a chap nerd who keeps dreaming of the perfect note-taking setup, I can’t judge I’ve ne'er seen anyone urge Emacs to you, and particularly the built-in Org-mode. It’s endlessly customizable, it’s ace flexible, and particularly erstwhile you constitute thing for a surviving (articles, scripts, emails, code), it’s by acold the champion instrumentality I person recovered retired there. Beorg is simply a truly bully iOS app that supports it excessively (and a decent if plain note-taking app successful general), and connected Android, I usage Orgzly instead.” — David

“Match Land. I’ve been looking for games to play mindlessly portion listening to music, and this crippled has gotten maine hooked. This crippled uses the match-3 mechanic arsenic a mode to stack up harm for an incredibly addictive RPG that’s each astir combos. And it’s got cute 8-bit graphics to boot!” — Shani

“Been playing a batch of Deadlock! It’s Valve’s MOBA / third-person leader shooter hybrid that someway conscionable works. It’s successful an aboriginal playtest authorities connected Steam — and does person a batch of show / gameplay unsmooth edges, on with a docket for erstwhile the crippled really *lets* you play online. Doesn’t halt it from being fun, though, and I emotion Bebop now, truthful it’s worthy it.” — Arthur

“Somehow Ryan George made the cleanable drama skit astir Elon’s ownership of Twitter. I’ve watched this truthful galore times this week.” — Jordan

“I precocious accomplished thing genuinely the Vergiest happening ever (and possibly a small crazy): merging the Mac and Samsung ecosystems! Here’s the breakdown. NearDrop is AirDrop, but for Android and Mac. It adjacent works some ways (with a small instrumentality to initiate transfers from Mac to Android by mimicking sharing a record from different Android telephone to marque it disposable to the Mac). Parallels lets maine tally Windows connected my Mac, and Phone Link provides seamless copy-paste betwixt devices. I tin adjacent formed aggregate apps from my telephone / tablet to the Mac’s surface with drag-and-drop support! Mirrcast connected Tab S9: Turns my tablet into a 2nd show for the Mac AND routes audio done my Buds 3 Pro. The cleanable seamless car audio switching betwixt the Mac and my Phone!” — Khalil

“I’m loving Terminus connected my Steam Deck. Turn-based zombie endurance crippled that conscionable released retired of Early Access.” – Justin

“I recovered this podcast’s position connected generative AI from Australian instrumentalist Ben Lee to beryllium refreshingly antithetic to the accustomed concerns astir licensing oregon quality.” — Andrew

“I’ve been listening to Darknet Diaries, by Jack Rhysider. This is simply a podcast astir hackers, breaches, shadiness authorities activity, hacktivism, cybercrime, and each the things that dwell connected the hidden parts of the network. It besides involves carnal penetration testing, societal engineering, and hardware hacking for fun.” — Sinan

“For radical who person clip and are wanting to tidy up their idiosyncratic record organization, I would powerfully urge Johnny.Decimal. It’s a truly intuitive (to me, astatine least) mode of keeping files organized, and he’s conscionable launched a speedy commencement pack to assistance radical get into the system. Also, his website is beauteous cool.” — Nathan

“I cannot urge the latest Waveform episode enough, 1 of the champion explainers for the conception of the fediverse and its protocols.” — Filip

Signing off

First of all, acknowledgment to everyone who said you’d beryllium down for Installer Fantasy Football adjacent year. I’m in! Let’s bash it — it’ll beryllium bonkers. Time to commencement prepping.

Second of all, a peculiar shoutout to Jim, who sent maine an email astir their phantasy setup that perfectly filled maine with joy. Here it is due to the fact that this is however it’s done:

“It’s acold from perfect, and I’m not definite it saves maine immoderate time. However, it’s good organized, and I’ve learned a batch on the way. All of the information is contained successful Google Sheets. I usage App Scripts to import each of the data:

I usage APIs to import my assorted phantasy teams from Yahoo, Sleeper, and ESPN. This gives maine entree to rosters, transactions, standings and escaped agents/waivers
I scrape information from assorted websites (FantasyPros, Ourlads, Pro Football Reference) straight via Apps Scripts
Some tract are a spot excessively analyzable to navigate for Apps Scripts, truthful I usage Python to scrape those and make a CSV which I import to Google Sheets
Lastly, I usage assorted R libraries (nflreadr, nflfastr, ffanalytics, ffscrapr) to download and manipulate the ridiculous magnitude of information that they marque available. I export those to CSV arsenic good and import to Google Sheets

It’s a analyzable process, but I usage MacOS Automator and Google Apps Script Triggers to automate astir of it. It lone requires a mates of play rodent clicks to update each of the data.”

You are each my people. This rules.

See you adjacent week!

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