Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 103, Your Guide to the Best and Edge-The worst thing in the world. (If you are fresh here, hello, sorry everything is so high-priced this week, and you can also read all the senior issues on the website Installer home page.)
I read about this week goes AND Costco AND protein bars AND Jonas brothersovereating Nobody wants that season two, trying to figure out how to save $4,500 on fresh Rivian electric bikesaying this to anyone who will listen T-Pain still has itlearning everything I can about Louvre attackplaying a surprising amount Fortnite on my iPad and I shop Yoto players after a dozen of you told me I should. Thank you for this.
I also have a cold fresh e-book reader for you, a fresh AI browser, a fresh version of your favorite senior game, and much more.
Also, send me your favorite things that can be watched over and over again! I’ve already received so many responses that I think next week’s issue could be entirely dedicated to this topic… Keep uploading shows, videos, TikToks, creators, and anything else you keep coming back to!
(As always, the best part Installer these are your ideas and tips. What are you reading/watching/playing/printing/taping this week? Tell me everything: instalator@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might like this Installerpass it on to them and ask them to subscribe here.)
- Boox Palma 2 Pro. My love for this smartphone-sized e-reader knows no bounds. (Okay, some limitations, but not much.) This fresh model is fascinating: it has a color screen, cellular connection, pen input… is it almost a phone? At $399 the price is heading in the wrong direction, but I’m very curious about this thing.
- ChatGPT Atlas. AI browsers are a dime a dozen. It’s Chrome with a chatbot everywhere you look! But given the massive size of ChatGPT, this one matters anyway; If anyone can make a real breakthrough in the browser market right now, it’s OpenAI.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Exaggerated. Good news: PvZ he’s back! The bad news: it looks like no one tried very tough with the reboot. The result, I guess: I’ve played this game many times before and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
- Samsung Galaxy XR. It’s Vision Pro, but lighter, more comfortable and half the price. I’m not bullish about the headset genre right now, but this is still a pretty good sales result! As an entertainment device, Samsung may have something to offer here.
- Aura ink. It’s the Samsung Frame TV with digital photo frames: a 13.5-inch E Ink panel that hangs on the wall and apparently only needs charging every few months. Great idea and everyone I know who has Aura frames likes them, but the $499 price tag is tough to swallow.
- Flower. I’ve experimented with a lot of Mac apps that make navigating the entire system a little easier – BookmarkBookmark it’s been a favorite lately – and I really like how it’s improved in Finder. It’s worth doing this for the filename and image resizing tools alone.
- House of Dynamite. Another one for “the premise is maybe a little too real?” files, but everything I hear about Netflix’s fresh edge-of-war thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow suggests it’s as gripping as you’d expect. This is first on my list to watch this weekend.
- Fujifilm X-T30 III. Lots of fresh cameras this week, including Leica and Lomography! But I have a supple spot for Fujifilm’s X-series – the company just does a great job of making filters and presets more accessible, and even finding astute ways to incorporate AI.
- Glamping. A Tubi original video directed by and starring the winner of a platform-wide fresh creator competition. It’s a horror movie about influencers, the trailer looks either pretty good or so bad it’s good, and I love campy horror movies. I’m strangely excited about this.
John Higgins he forgot more about TVs than I will ever know. He’s been working here as a senior TV and audio reviewer for a few weeks now, and he’s already blowing my mind with his knowledge and credentials – including the fact that he’s a certified TV calibrator, which is now my fresh life goal.
Either way, you’ll be seeing John everywhere Edge covering all kinds of audio and video equipment. I asked him to share his home screen because I like introducing fresh people and also to see if maybe he sucked at phones and felt a little superior to him. Unfortunately, no bones.
Here’s John’s home screen and what apps he uses and why:
Phone: I’m currently using an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but I’m considering upgrading to the 17.
Wallpaper: This is a photo of a redwood tree taken while driving along the West Coast from Los Angeles to just north of Seattle in 2023. I camped among the redwoods for a few days, went hiking, and was absolutely amazed to be surrounded by the nature of Endor…I mean Northern California.
Applications: Wallet, Settings, Camera, Apple Maps, FaceTime, Reminders, Apple Notes, Chrome, Safari, Weather, Find My, Photos, SoCal Audio, Phone, Messages, Mail, Calendar.
I’m a bit bad at organizing apps (although I took the opportunity to tidy them up a bit). I usually just download them and display them at the bottom of my list. I currently have six screens of apps, including multiple AV apps from every manufacturer.
My home screen contains the things I access most often: email, various social networks (like Instagram, Signal, WhatsApp, LinkedIn), the My Home app for controlling devices, tons of streaming apps, and of course the games I play most often, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (which I have been playing since its release, almost 10 years ago) and Marvel Strike Force.
I also asked John to share some of the things he’s currently interested in. Here’s what he sent back:
- At this point my son started to really engage Star Wars (finally!), so we watch the videos and then we’ll get started The Clone Wars.
- Recently I also started following an compelling creator on Instagram, Dave Chisholmwho is a comic book creator and musician who does great music theory analyzes of Radiohead songs along with his illustrations. I have my own masters in music performance, so I really like the way he breaks down the structure of the song and musical symbolism in an accessible way.
- I’m huge too Dropout fan and I’m glad there’s a fresh season Make some noise it’s just started.
Here’s what Installer the community is engaged this week. I also want to know what you are doing now! E-mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal – @davidpierce.11 – with your recommendations on everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here each week. For even more great recommendations, check out the answers at this post on Threads AND this post on Bluesky.
“A few weeks ago, after setting up my NAS, I moved from Google Photos to Immicha self-hosted duplicate that is almost identical. The process of transferring photos was painful, but now I have my own photo server. I started working on the setup Home assistantand my self-hosting journey (as much as I can) is a work in progress.”-Craig
“Ready Task tonight on HBO. Incredibly well done, completely devastating in some moments and uplifting in others.” —Oli
“I recently discovered a use case that I think fully justifies its existence: loading board game instructions into NotebookLM and using him as both a guide and, more importantly, a referee during arguments. —Jacob
“I just finished reading Enshitification by Cory Doctorow this morning. It was a great read and I highly recommend it.” — Nathaniel
“I just got it RayCue charging station to add some features to my Mac Mini M4. I’m waiting for an NVMe SSD to add storage to my Mac.” —Jean-François
“I had a good time MD vinyl. It’s just a great looking app focused on albums. There are usually plenty of such applications, but this one puts my phone in standby mode more often.” — Mateusz
“Ball x Pit took over my life like Balatro I did it once.” — Ronak
“Zen Browser I recently received a great update that greatly improves my quality of life and overall has become fully my daily browser over the last few months.” — Jane
“I really like miniature cars racing on sedate tracks. 3DBotmaker is a YouTube channel where they do amazing races and they are currently inside DRC-X. It’s beautifully filmed, has great commentary, and it’s all very impressive, darling.” -Jasper
I have an eternal battle with what I call “scrolling apps” on my phone. I’ll delete Reddit and Threads and Bluesky and Instagram and everything else and then I’ll be stuck in line at Costco and then poof, everyone reappears. It’s a good read, it’s true, and I like doing crosswords, but sometimes I do it to want to look at my phone for 10 minutes, you know?
The best thing I found, which is a bit surprising, is this Dropout. (I wrote this before John told me he loved Dropout too, I swear). I only recently became a subscriber, and the giant library of feel-good comedy games proves to be the perfect thing to binge-watch for a few minutes. (Sam Reich, if you’re reading this: share a vertical video feed with all your social clips with me in the app!) Make some noise the episode puts me in a much better mood than doomscrolling, and like the rest of the internet, I’m quickly turning into Brennan Lee Mulligan superfan. I highly recommend it in every respect.