The new and improved Windows PCs are finally here

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 43, your usher to the champion and Verge-iest worldly successful the world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, truthful psyched you recovered us, and besides you tin work each the aged editions astatine the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been speechmaking astir memexes and telepathy and John Lennon’s wristwatch, watching Presumed Innocent and Ren Faire, testing Genspark for AI hunt stuff, redoing my homescreen with Dumbify, and experimenting with overnight oats successful an effort to marque mornings little chaotic. (Turns out, peanut food makes beauteous overmuch everything 20 percent better.)

I besides person for you a caller tech podcast, a mates of useful caller gadgets, a caller calendar app, the crippled that volition instrumentality implicit your weekend, and overmuch more. Let’s get into it.

(As always, the champion portion of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into close now? What large apps / books / podcasts / shows / games / recipes / immoderate other person you discovered and loved recently? Tell maine everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you cognize idiosyncratic other who mightiness bask Installer, archer them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

The Asus VivoBook S 15. Copilot Plus PCs cometh. It’s been a weird rollout, what with all the Recall complications, but we’re starting to get a consciousness of conscionable what this caller epoch of Qualcomm-powered Windows devices tin do. So far, I’m beauteous optimistic, but I’m inactive waiting to spot however the caller Surfaces cookware out.
Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. The wide vibe of this immense caller DLC is fundamentally “it’s Elden Ring, lone someway adjacent much so.” Given however heavy and large this crippled already was, and however galore hours we’ve each spent successful it already, that’s beauteous overmuch each you tin inquire for.
Pissing retired Cancer. If each the Dropout Presents stand-up specials are arsenic overmuch amusive arsenic this 1 from Hank Green, we’re astir to person a heck of a tally of caller comedy. Green present is comic and goofy arsenic ever and highly Hank Green-y. It’s an hr you won’t regret.
The Xreal Beam Pro. Such a amusive and antithetic idea astir however astute glasses should work: alternatively of trying to cook everything into the glasses themselves, Xreal is pulling each the smarts and bundle into a abstracted reasonably inexpensive smartphone-style device. I’m excited to trial this 1 out.
Backfired: The Vaping Wars. The Juul communicative mightiness everlastingly beryllium 1 of the strangest things to ever hap successful Silicon Valley. This podcast goes heavy connected that story, on with the confusing societal statement astir vaping, the government’s scramble to support up, and wherever things spell from here.
Arc for iPad. Still my favourite browser, yet disposable connected astir each my devices. (Android when, Arc people!?!) The app isn’t precisely iPad-optimized — it’s missing immoderate keyboard shortcuts and is truly conscionable a blown-up mentation of the iPhone app — but it syncs and works good and I volition perfectly instrumentality it.
Amie for Windows. Big week for cross-platform apps! Amie is 1 of my favourite calendar / to-do apps and has gotten a batch much polished implicit the past fewer months. If you’re the all-in-one productivity benignant and admit immoderate delightful design, springiness this 1 a whirl.
The Logitech Keys-to-Go 2. I’ve had the archetypal Keys-To-Go successful my container for a fewer years arsenic a ace airy and useful mode to get immoderate worldly done with my telephone oregon iPad. This looks similar a immense upgrade: inactive light, inactive small, but with a much due acceptable of keys. $80 is simply a lot, but I fishy I’ll extremity up buying one.
A Sense of Rebellion. An amazingly well-produced and profoundly reported podcast connected immoderate decades-old ideas astir AI and however we mightiness usage and unrecorded with technology. The communicative here, astir hippies and capitalists and the authorities and large business, is benignant of the communicative of exertion each wrapped up successful 10 episodes. Loving this truthful far.
Clipbud. Clipboard past is adjuvant and good, but having a spot with each the substance you benignant a batch – your shipping address, banal email responses, important links, each of that — is a life-changer. The built-in text replacement and idiosyncratic dictionary features (on iOS and Android, respectively) bash a batch of that, and apps similar Snippety are mega-powerful, but this caller 1 is beauteous delightful to use.

Screen share

I deliberation Nick Quah has introduced maine to much large podcasts than immoderate different idiosyncratic connected earth. Whether successful the aboriginal days of Hot Pod oregon successful his 1.5x Speed newsletter implicit astatine Vulture (The Verge’s sister tract present astatine Vox Media), helium seems to person listened to each the shows each the time. Just this week, actually, helium wrote a amusive communicative astir how chat podcasts person taken over and named immoderate of the biggest names successful New Radio.

I asked Nick to stock his homescreen due to the fact that a) I was funny what podcast app helium utilized and b) I was hoping helium mightiness urge a caller amusement oregon two. I got my privation connected some counts! Here’s Nick’s homescreen, positive immoderate info connected the apps helium uses and why:

The phone: Recently upgraded from my trusty ol’ iPhone 12 to an iPhone 15. Seems to beryllium doing good truthful far; I’m nary longer stressed astir losing foodstuff connected agelong flights.

The wallpaper: My sweet, saccharine babe lad Siobhan (aka Shooby).

The apps: Calendar, Photos, Clock, Weather, Google Maps, To Do, Google Calendar, Gmail, Spotify, TikTok, Instagram, Steam, Delta, Strava, Discord, Slack, Stocks, LastPass, Messages, Phone, Firefox, Pocket Casts.

Yeah, well, arsenic you tin see, I’m beauteous vanilla for the astir part. All the instantly accessible apps are worldly I deed up with immoderate frequence connected immoderate fixed day. Google Maps for navigation (and snooping). To Do to get my encephalon successful order. TikTok and Instagram for thing to bash successful the bathroom. I’ve been gaming a batch much these days, truthful I’m perpetually trawling Steam for deals. Strava, ‘cuz I’ve someway go a large runner. I’ve besides been hitting up Delta rather a bit, moving done a backlog of aged JRPGs. And of course, Pocket Casts, which is my go-to for podcast listening.

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

I’m a large rewatcher / replayer of things, and for immoderate reason, the summertime is usually erstwhile I prime up my yearly revisits. Right now, I’m moving my mode done Halt and Catch Fire for the sixth time. Gosh, that amusement is truthful lovely. It’s the 10-year anniversary, you know?
Like the remainder of the beingness astatine this constituent successful time, seemingly, I’m digging Chappell Roan. “Red Wine Supernova,” precise good.
Slowly making my mode done Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance successful the City of Love, David Talbot’s 2013 past of San Francisco. I’m uncovering it rather remarkable.
Catching up connected episodes of My Perfect Console, Simon Parkin’s large “Desert Island Discs, but for Video Games” interrogation amusement that’s truly doubling arsenic a amusive humanities grounds for the medium.

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

“This small camera. I’ve been going implicit ways successful my caput to warrant it due to the fact that it’s truthful cute but besides the photos are amazingly decent.” – Daulton

“Check retired Ditto. It is simply a Nostr server that exposes Mastodon API to its clients. So the committedness is that you would beryllium capable to usage your precise bully Mastodon app (Ivory, Ice Cubes) and adhd Nostr transportation close into it. It would beryllium similar an further server successful the aforesaid app wherever your main Mastodon relationship is.” – Adnan

“I’ve been dilatory getting backmost into pursuing Pokemón trading cards and person been hooked watching TheBulbaStore connected YouTube. It’s ace absorbing seeing a vendor’s constituent of presumption and the prices immoderate cards spell for now!” – Peter

“The Hawthorne & Horowitz mysteries by Anthony Horowitz. He precocious released the 5th successful the series, Close to Death. They each person tortured puns arsenic titles (in this case, “close” being a British connection for enclosed area). On apical of that, the books are metafiction successful which Horowitz himself is the main character, talking astir however helium is penning the bid of execution mysteries that you are reading. Yet, they are immoderate of the champion modern execution mysteries I’ve work and bash a fantastic occupation paying homage to Agatha Christie, each portion playing with the genre.” – Kendrick

“I’m playing and watching chess! Chess is chill now! Lots of large ways to play, but Chess.com is astir apt the champion for beginners. And there’s large YouTube contented retired determination connected chess from Eric Rosen, Irina Krush, Levy Rozman, and Hikaru Nakamura. Getting bully truthful I tin thatch my three-year-old niece to beryllium a maestro someday.” – Ryan

“I americium truly enjoying “Jet Lag: The Game” connected YouTube. Imagine The Amazing Race, but really bully and not scripted. The hosts are likable and the crippled has immoderate decent complexity down it. They are astir to wrapper up their Australia season, and it has been a nail-biter.” – Dev

“I’m presently speechmaking Hell Divers II: Ghosts by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. Postapocalyptic sci-fi astir halo jumpers who dive into radioactive wastelands to scavenge supplies from mutant monsters, and yes, it is arsenic bully arsenic it sounds.” – Jesse

“I’ve been obsessed with my caller Klydoclock, a integer instrumentality connected the classical analog clock. It features changing, artist-curated faces and tin adjacent tick and chime connected the hr if you privation it to. Best of all: it has nary different functions and isn’t attached to an app oregon your phone. Minimalism and elegance astatine its finest.” – Jonathan

“I truly judge that a location server oregon NAS is utile and easy accessible for much radical than presently person one. More radical should person their ain Plex server, Pi-hole, self-hosted unreality storage, Minecraft server, oregon self-hosted VPN. An aged PC is each you request if you privation to support it simple. And if you don’t caput learning however to enactment with Linux, you could adjacent usage an aged Android telephone oregon inexpensive Raspberry Pi clone.” – Voltaire

Signing off

I cognize I’ve mentioned this before, but I perfectly cannot get capable of watching / listening to / speechmaking astir however radical who are large astatine their happening bash their thing. (The instrumentalist Kygo has a bid of making-of videos that is ever the archetypal illustration I deliberation of successful this genre.) One of my favourite caller ones is this video, with Zane Lowe interviewing Finneas and Billie Eilish astir the making of Eilish’s latest album. They speech astir process, fear, microphones, editing, and truthful overmuch more. I volition astir surely ne'er marque an album, oregon sprout a movie, oregon marque it successful the NBA, but listening to radical speech astir however they bash it ne'er gets old.

See you adjacent week!

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