Hello, associates! Welcome to Installer No. 101, your information to the perfect and Verge-iest stuff on the earth. (In case you’re new right here, welcome, hope you want foolish equipment, and in addition you possibly can learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been studying about Intel factories and Nobel Prize winners and ATM thieves, watching this pop-punk “Defying Gravity” cowl on repeat, reliving my teenage music style now that The Format is again, catching up on the brand new Important Function marketing campaign, taking all my calls with the pleasant Pop Cellphone handset, watching extra Love Is Blind than I’m pleased with, sending this deep dive on RSS readers to anybody who hasn’t blocked me, sticking issues on Google’s Pixelsnap Charger, and attempting desperately to evade the chilly that’s going round. Good luck to us all.
I even have for you a brand new method to make use of ChatGPT, a terrific new online game podcast, Tim Robinson’s new present, the newest Battlefield, and way more. Let’s dig in.
(As all the time, the perfect a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you into this week? What ought to everybody else be studying / watching / enjoying / sticking on the wall / chopping up with scissors? Inform me all the things: electronic mail installer@theverge.com, or hit me up on Sign @davidpierce.11. And if you understand another person who would possibly get pleasure from Installer, inform them to subscribe to The Verge and are available hang around with us.)
- Apps in ChatGPT. OpenAI is beginning to discuss ChatGPT as an working system, which is each an clearly sensible and ruthless tactic — it’s good enterprise proudly owning the OS! — and a strategy to make the product itself make extra sense. Open the bot, handle an app, and ask Spotify to make you a playlist or Expedia to seek out you flights. This… works for me.
- Hidden Ranges. Two of my favourite podcasts — 99 P.c Invisible and Infinite Thread — are teaming as much as make a six-part podcast concerning the fascinating real-world results of online game mechanics and devices. That is all of my pursuits colliding, I’ll take a thousand extra episodes please and thanks.
- “A cartoonist’s evaluate of AI artwork.” A very pretty, and poignant, take from The Oatmeal on the present state of generative AI. (Now that is a sentence I by no means thought I’d write.) It’s about what artwork feels, each to make and to eat, and whether or not AI stuff will ever really feel the identical.
- The Chair Firm. Tim Robinson has, at the very least for me, entered the “I’ll watch something they make it doesn’t matter what” realm of comedians. Plus, what’s a extra present premise than a comparatively regular factor occurring to a man that sends him down a world-bending conspiracy concept rabbit gap?
- “Clear your TV Display The Proper Approach.” In 5 minutes, (pal of Installer) Caleb Denison satisfied me to cease utilizing Windex on my TV, received me to purchase some enormous microfiber towels, and has my TV the cleanest it has ever been. Even the toddler fingerprints are lastly gone!
- Subway Builder. In case you’re ever performed a sport like Mini Metro or Prepare Valley, this sport goes to rock your world. It’s a brilliant reasonable, outrageously detailed sport with real-world knowledge and simulations that places you completely accountable for constructing and sustaining the subway system.
- Battlefield 6. I haven’t performed a lot Battlefield the previous couple of years — I like a brilliant tight shooter sport, not large sprawling open multiplayer on-line worlds. However the critiques of this one all appear to say it discovered a great center floor between these issues, and that the sport is lastly extra enjoyable than slog once more.
- The Belkin Stage PowerGrip. Is that this $80 exterior battery / digital camera grip for the iPhone a good suggestion? I don’t know. Right here’s what I do know: I hate utilizing Digital camera Management, one-handed panorama iPhone footage are awkward, okay superb I’ll purchase one this can be a good thought.
I see Stephen Robles’ face everywhere in the web. He’s proper there on the homepage of Riverside.fm, the platform we use to file podcasts, the place he makes product movies and tutorials. And thru his wonderful Major Expertise podcast, and his tremendous useful YouTube channel, dude simply all the time appears to be in my feeds!
I reached out to Stephen this week as a result of he and I must struggle about Shortcuts. I believe Shortcuts is a complete failure of a product, whereas Stephen makes numerous nice content material about the best way to make and make use of actually cool Shortcuts. I complain about Shortcuts; Stephen tells me I’m fallacious. We’re going to have it out on The Vergecast. However I additionally requested Stephen to share his homescreen, to see how he manages all of it. And to see if he’s actually as Shortcuts-pilled as he appears.
Right here’s Stephen’s homescreen, plus some data on the apps he makes use of and why:
The telephone: iPhone 17 Professional Max.
The wallpaper: My homescreen modifications by Focus mode on the weekends / evenings. My foremost wallpaper is from Fundamental Apple Man, September Gradients. My weekend lockscreen is the NASA picture of the Pillars of Creation, ’trigger it’s superior. (Sure, I’ve a reminder to do Wordle daily.)
The apps: Maps, Pockets, Images, Instagram, Perplexity, House, Issues, Reminders, YouTube, Slack, Bear, YouTube Studio, Safari, Threads, Messages, Foodnoms.
I’ve moved a big share of my internet looking out to Perplexity, so it earned a spot on the homescreen. Bear is the perfect notes app. I exploit the kanban view in Reminders for YouTube planning, however Issues for challenge / activity administration, so sure I’ve twin activity apps.
Most just lately I began monitoring energy and macros with Foodnoms, which had an awesome replace for iOS 26. It’s made the method a lot simpler than different apps I’ve tried and have misplaced 30 lbs in the previous couple of months due to it!
I additionally requested Stephen to share a couple of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he despatched again:
- Having solely just lately found them, Hank and John Inexperienced have began to eat a lot of my podcast and YouTube time. Hank’s takes on Sora and the web as a complete are price listening to.
- Launched my youngsters to Comfortable Gilmore and the sequel, they’re each nice.
- I learn 4 Thousand Weeks earlier this yr and it’s nonetheless messing with me.
- My youngsters are enjoying the brand new Skate sport, so I save TikToks of hilarious tips and all of us watch them as a household.
- Additionally, Shortcuts.
Right here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I wish to know what you’re into proper now as nicely! Electronic mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Sign — @davidpierce.11 — together with your suggestions for something and all the things, and we’ll characteristic a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, take a look at the replies to this put up on Threads and this put up on Bluesky.
“A pair years in the past I joined Instagram so as to observe a band, The Beths. In a short time I began seeing posts from an odd however compelling account, The Dream Eaters, that was doing quick music movies mixing goth, ‘80’s digital, metallic, and dream pop on hilarious off-the-wall subjects. There’s no method I’d have ever discovered of them, an NYC art-rock outfit, in the event that they hadn’t began posting quick movies to TikTok after which Instagram. Now they’re certainly one of my favourite artists ever.” — Jon
“I’ve been catching up on First, Final, All the things. It’s an awesome interview podcast to this point with fascinating friends (and a tech angle in fact).” — Roman
“This week I’ve fallen headfirst into what I’d describe as Nouveau Retro gaming by modding a PS Vita. Unimaginable stuff. A great deal of hacks, tweaks, plugins, homebrew. An actual nerdy treasure trove.” — Simon
“Simply purchased a 2010 5,1 Mac Professional. Upgrading / fixing it is going to be a great weekend challenge.” — SaltedPork
“I just lately upgraded my Murena account for extra storage and higher assist. Ultimately I’ll in all probability improve to a telephone bought instantly from Murena. Within the meantime I switched suppliers to Proton, but I nonetheless really feel drawn to an ecosystem I want: Nextcloud. Its suite of on-line companies — workplace, calendar, notes, duties, inventive‑observe apps like Carnet, and even the beta ‘Cookbook’ characteristic — matches what I’ve lengthy wished from Google. I attempted internet hosting my very own Nextcloud occasion, however the upkeep grew to become overwhelming, so I’m completely satisfied to pay for an annual service that helps a more healthy web and telephone ecosystem.” — Stephen
“I made my Change 2 translucent with the brand new ExtremeRate equipment!” — Sophia
“I maintain an inventory of saved product manuals and paperwork. I additionally uploaded all of them right into a pocket book in NotebookLM, so now I simply must ask ‘How do I de-scale the Sage espresso machine’ to get the information I would like!” — Sara
“Been studying Japanese and Kana for iOS helped me quite a bit to be taught the characters. Enjoyable and quick, been doing fast and huge quizzes on a regular basis on my telephone. Good to see stats going up and no adverts, moreover different apps they should continue learning.” — Uli
“Demo for Skate Story, presumably the sickest-looking sport of the yr, simply dropped.” — Sophie
“I simply received a bounce rope, attempting to re-build a health behavior. And I instantly seen that this can be a cause to purchase new exercise headphones, as my AirPods Professional 2 don’t stay in my ears whereas rope skipping. I ended up getting the Powerbeats Professional 2. Actually love them to this point!” — Matthias
For years, anytime somebody would ask me what film they need to watch, I’d all the time say Somm. It’s a documentary following 4 individuals coaching to grow to be Grasp Sommeliers — which requires passing one of many world’s most-failed checks — nevertheless it’s additionally a narrative about ardour and exhausting work. And wine. I discovered extra about wine from Somm than from one million vineyard excursions.
Nothing I’ve seen since has fairly scratched the identical itch, however a brand new present this week would possibly come shut. It’s known as Knife Edge, it’s on Apple TV Plus, and it’s all about cooks attempting to get, or preserve, their Michelin star. Just one episode is out, however to this point the vibe is sort of Hell’s Kitchen meets Drive to Survive, if that is smart? It’s all very melodramatic, nevertheless it’s a blast. I all the time love watching individuals be good at their jobs, and this does that basically nicely. It additionally made me hungry roughly 60 instances within the first episode.