Time to upgrade your reading gadgets

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 57, your usher to the champion and Verge-iest worldly successful the world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, blessed Kindle Season to each who celebrate, and besides you tin work each the aged editions astatine the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been speechmaking astir sports betting and designer proteins and the Ford Bronco, listening to Bon Iver’s caller Sable and Brian Eno’s aged Music for Airports on repeat, watching Archer and Unstable, desperately trying to find a amended controller for the Nintendo Switch, and yet earnestly making plans to physique a full seltzer strategy into my room counter. It’s conscionable time.

I besides person for you an unusually gadget-heavy week: caller Kindles, caller iPads, caller retro crippled consoles, and overmuch more. Oh, and I forgot to notation this past week, but The Verge is hiring for a mates of truly chill jobs, including a senior tech editor and a lawman editor overseeing our reviews and commerce programs. You should apply! Can corroborate this is an awesome spot to work. And if you person questions astir either role, deed maine up.

Anyway, gadget time. Let’s bash it.

(As always, the champion portion of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / playing / speechmaking / trying this week? What should everyone other beryllium into arsenic overmuch arsenic you are? Tell maine everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you cognize idiosyncratic other who mightiness bask Installer, guardant it to them and archer them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

Screen share

I deliberation it’s inactive the lawsuit that Adi Robertson is the worker astatine The Verge who has worn the astir AR and VR headsets. Is that a chill favoritism oregon a horrifying one? Who knows! But the net is filled with pictures of Adi wearing face-puters. Now, she runs our argumentation table and is reasoning an atrocious batch astir however we ought to regulate, use, and marque consciousness of each the exertion successful our lives. Also thing astir an predetermination successful a fewer weeks? Not definite what that’s about.

Here’s Adi’s homescreen, positive immoderate info connected the apps she uses and why:

The phone: Samsung Galaxy S24.

The wallpaper: My lockscreen is simply a rotating slideshow of my seven-month-old due to the fact that I americium That Mom now. My homescreen is the Continuous Monument, which is simply a satirical sci-fi architecture conception from the 1970s avant-garde steadfast Superstudio — it’s portion of a bid of illustrations of a huge, sterile, grid-like arcology lacing crossed the full world. Sort of similar a immense mentation of Saudi Arabia’s The Line project, but cipher was expected to actually physique it.

The apps: Libby, Google Authenticator, Amazon, The New York Times, Simplenote, Google Messages, Bluesky, Feedly, Slack, Clock, Camera, LastPass, Paprika, Phone, Wikipedia, Google Photos, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Stash2Go, Okta Verify, LibraryThing, Files, Spotify, Signal, Gmail, Firefox, Google Maps.

I person a batch of inertia successful my homescreen; I kept Google Hangouts connected determination for months aft it unopen down. I besides added immoderate worldly aft becoming a genitor — I ordered from Amazon possibly doubly a period until I had a tiny carnal perpetually going done diapers and look and random items I didn’t recognize babies needed.

Libby: While I afloat enactment the thought of library-managed controlled integer lending, I can’t contradict the convenient pipeline of borrowing a publication from the New York and Brooklyn nationalist libraries done Libby and having it look instantly connected my Kobo reader. You got me, public-private tech partnerships. Sometimes you’re good.

Paprika: In an epoch of nexus rot and paywalls, this is the champion work I’ve recovered for opening a look connected the internet, downloading a idiosyncratic copy, and keeping it permanently connected my telephone for reference. (There’s besides a desktop version.) It’s simple, no-nonsense, and includes a calendar for readying meals and an casual market database feature.

Stash2Go: I don’t knit arsenic overmuch arsenic I utilized to (infants and elephantine needles contiguous immoderate evident problems), but I’m an avid Ravelry user, and erstwhile I started knitting, this was the champion third-party app I found. It maintains astir of the site’s almighty signifier hunt options portion letting maine upload pictures of my projects.

Bluesky: When Twitter’s idiosyncratic basal started splintering, I wasn’t definite Bluesky would marque it! But my archetypal choice, Mastodon, started feeling similar a chore — I’m blessed for the radical who emotion it and I anticipation it flourishes, my provender conscionable filled up with 1 excessively galore arguments implicit the ideological valence of hunt options and punctuation posts. At this point, immoderate of my favourite Twitter communities (like tech argumentation Twitter) person migrated to Bluesky, and it’s go a bully mode to support up with what’s going on.

LibraryThing: With perfectly nary disrespect to the creator of LibraryThing: I bash not similar LibraryThing. I bash not similar the analyzable sorting and annotation features I ne'er use. I bash not similar that, fractional the time, adding a publication to my room requires restarting the app. But I similar keeping way of the books I’ve read, and Goodreads — with its reappraisal bombing, its harassment potential, its attempts to marque maine stock my speechmaking past — conscionable feels gross. If you person a little janky alternative, delight fto maine know.

Feedly: I support up with quality and essays connected RSS. I got a Feedly relationship erstwhile Google Reader unopen down. It works beauteous well, and I’m blessed with it. I americium a elemental woman, acceptable successful my ways.

Wikipedia: This is my Instagram. I’ve mislaid hours scrolling it. My existent tabs see Charlotta Bass (the archetypal Black pistillate to ain and run a US newspaper), Daigo Fukuryū Maru (the Japanese sportfishing boat, contaminated with radioactive fallout successful the 1950s, that partially inspired Godzilla), and the 1995 Raven Software first-person shooter Hexen: Beyond Heretic, which I person ne'er played.

I besides asked Adi to stock a fewer things she’s into close now. Here’s what she 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’ve recovered and been playing a full batch of Codenames, a caller app mentation of the committee game. It is incredibly well-thought-out, with tons of amusive variations and chill ideas. It’s besides a one-time purchase, which I truly appreciate!” – Joel

“Some erstwhile Pitchfork folks started their ain happening called Hearing Things and started it disconnected with a slayer playlist of the champion euphony of the decennary truthful far. And earlier anyone asks — yes, they bash person a ‘blog’ section.” – Christine

“I conscionable finished Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four. It has to beryllium the weirdest, astir unsocial transgression fabrication I’ve ever read. Highly urge it.” – Laszlo

“I truly similar DuckDuckGo AI Chat, which includes the ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, and Mixtral models, wherever chats are backstage and are ne'er saved oregon utilized to bid AI models. As a privacy-focused user, I find this truly helpful.” – Shyam

“Charli XCX’s Brat remix album — the hottest impermanent lineup since the pandemic.” – Dariusz

“It’s dumb, overpriced, and over-engineered. I conscionable got 3 of these Simplehuman trash cans for my bathrooms. It’s built similar a tank, and these things volition spell with maine to my grave.” – Brian

“Here’s a amusive crippled you should look into: the workplace is called Rusty Lake, and they person 15–20 point-and-click games that each are connected to an wide story. It deals with murder, reincarnation, and family, and they’re truly good! I would commencement with Paradox due to the fact that that’s the 1 I started with.” – Levi

“Discovered Netflix has a Minesweeper successful their games catalog. It’s thing special, but it’s a solid, polished mentation of the game, and it’s been my default mobile crippled for the past week.” – Justin

“Been connected an Ursula K. Le Guin footwear and speechmaking The Dispossessed. It goes heavy into reasoning what a nine based connected anarchist principles would beryllium like, positive tons of mid-century sci-fi goodness.” – Richard

Signing off

I’m definite (or astatine slightest I hope) I’m the 9,000th idiosyncratic to archer you to ticker Cabel Sasser’s speech from the XOXO conference this year. Honestly, astir of the talks from XOXO are large if you attraction astir the net and creativity and creation and stuff, but Sasser’s was my favorite. I committedness you volition ne'er conjecture wherever it’s going, and I committedness it’s worthy the journey. I’m moving connected seeing the satellite much similar Wes Cook.

See you adjacent week!