Hello, pals! Welcome to Installer No. 118, your information to the perfect and Verge-iest stuff on the earth. (In case you’re new right here, welcome, please take my Change away so I can get some work completed, and in addition you may learn all of the outdated editions on the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been studying about moon factories and railroad monopolies and backing into parking spots, lastly digging into the Acquired podcast archives, taking tons of notes on Michael Pollan’s new ebook about consciousness, watching every little thing Look Mum No Laptop has ever made, breaking my laptop making an attempt to get the Obsidian CLI to work for me, giving the Zen Browser one other attempt as my default, and constructing a bunch of Ikea furnishings for my bed room. I love constructing Ikea furnishings.
I even have for you Apple’s low cost(er) new laptop computer, a brand new mannequin from OpenAI, a enjoyable new function to your Pixel cellphone, and SO MANY nice video games to play this weekend. Let’s do that.
(As all the time, the perfect a part of Installer is your concepts and ideas. What are you watching / studying / enjoying / listening to / gazing wistfully at proper now? Inform me every little thing: installer@theverge.com. And if another person who would possibly take pleasure in Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)
- The Apple MacBook Neo. I described this on a Vergecast stream as “Fisher Worth My First MacBook,” and I believe that’s about proper. However I believe this factor goes to be the precise correct mix of enjoyable colours, simply sufficient energy, and a terrific worth ($599!) to make it a lot of individuals’s first MacBook. I’ll say, although: I don’t love the yellow. Indigo all the best way.
- OpenAI’s GPT-5.4. OpenAI is pushing onerous to catch as much as Claude Code, and I preserve listening to that this new mannequin is a giant step in that route. Plus it provides native laptop use, which it is best to method EXTREMELY rigorously, however places an LLM able to be much more helpful. One to play with this weekend for positive.
- System 1 on Apple TV. One, I believe for those who’re studying this there’s a robust likelihood you’d respect F1, which is as a lot a tech factor as a sports activities factor. Two, the races will now be on Apple TV, and up to now it seems Apple has some nice concepts about the best way to present them. You’ve gotten till Sunday to compensate for Drive to Survive!
- Slay the Spire 2. Oh boy have been lots of you in my inbox about this this week. The much-anticipated sequel to a beloved roguelike is out (technically in early entry, but it surely appears to be extraordinarily playable already), and I do know has already ruined the productiveness of many people within the Installerverse. Don’t miss this one.
- Pokémon Pokopia. What every week for endlessly playable video games! Think about Pokémon, however as a substitute of spending all of your time combating and gathering, you principally simply hang around and make pals and construct stuff. It’s not Animal Crossing or Minecraft, but it surely’s positively these things-ish. And I imply that as a praise.
- Android Desktop Mode. You probably have a latest Pixel, you have to replace to the newest Android after which plug your cellphone right into a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. No, we’re not fairly at “it simply turns into a Chromebook!” ranges of greatness. However Desktop Mode actually, truly, genuinely works. I’m very enthusiastic about it.
- Marathon. That is the form of enormous live-service recreation that just about by no means works anymore. (To this point, the following Fortnite is simply… Fortnite.) However Marathon is on the very least an excellent, very shiny, very intense recreation, the sort you hope and anticipate Bungie to drag off. Don’t sleep on this one — you by no means understand how lengthy it’ll final.
- Glaze by Raycast. Vibe coding is probably not coding, but it surely’s nonetheless fairly technically advanced. I really like this method from Raycast, which tries to automate a bunch of design work and product implementation so actually all it’s important to do is describe the options you need. I’ve been enjoying with it for just a few days now, making one million little instruments I each do and don’t want, and it’s a heck of lots of enjoyable.
- The Nothing Headphone A. I’ve come round on Nothing’s retro-future headphone design, and I actually like the entire package when it solely prices $199. I want the mic sounded higher, but it surely has all of the controls, connectivity, and battery life you could possibly ask for.
The previous couple of nights, it’s been feeling like 2018 once more. I get a notification a couple of minutes earlier than 9, and all of the sudden Scott Rogowsky is on my display screen working a stay recreation present. It’s not HQ Trivia anymore, although, and it’s not even trivia. The app known as Savvy, the sport known as TextSavvy, and it performs like a real-time Wordle competitors. It’s very totally different, and really enjoyable, and I can’t imagine how shortly the sport has grow to be a part of my night routine once more.
The sport has been in testing for some time, however this week was its official launch. To mark the event, I requested Scott to share his homescreen with us, hoping I’d see whether or not he actually is dishonest throughout the video games or not. (He swears he’s not.) I additionally puzzled if he nonetheless had HQ on his cellphone, like I did for a bunch of years.
Right here’s Scott’s homescreen, plus some data on the apps he makes use of and why:
The cellphone: iPhone 16 working iOS 18.5.
The wallpaper: My five-year-old tremendous mutt Buscemi, in a barrel.
The apps: Messages, WhatsApp, Savvy, Notes, Digicam, Settings, Slack, Substack, Google Calendar, Cellphone, Mail, Safari, Google Maps.
Name me loopy, however I principally use my cellphone for communication: Messages (I preserve notifications off), WhatsApp (my sister lives in Scotland, and I’ve a bunch of pals overseas), Cellphone (the missed calls are all spammers… I’ll get again to them quickly), Gmail…
Calendar is likely to be my most-used app, all the time a lot to do, and I’m all the time forgetting when it’s time to do them. I used to maintain a bodily pocket book on me always once I began doing comedy; nonetheless always writing issues down, however now it’s within the Notes app.
I began a Substack on my fortieth birthday, and it’s been probably the most creatively rewarding experiences of my life. I write about regardless of the hell I would like, and make podcasts about regardless of the hell pursuits me. I simply started “The Savvy Diaries,” the place I share the fun and challenges of working a startup cellular app on the nexus of tech and leisure (techertainment?).
I additionally requested Scott to share just a few issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he despatched again:
- The very first thing that involves thoughts are these black-and-white, Paranormal Exercise-style TikToks I see each time I open the app, with cats bursting into bedrooms and waking up their French-speaking house owners by enjoying guitar or captaining a pirate ship. I dunno, is likely to be AI.
- The Ben and Emil Present. I’m partial as a result of Ben is a good friend (and a softball teammate), however he and his buddy Emil have been making high quality content material on the common, together with a latest masterpiece known as “We took Acid on the Prepare Pageant.” Drop every little thing for the following 20 minutes and watch it now. Hilarious and heartwarming and completely beautiful.
- Lowkey obsessive about Clavicular… I’ll always remember the place I used to be the day I realized he bought framemogged by an ASU frat chief (I used to be mid jestergooning with a bunch of Foids). I began a marketing campaign to get him co-hosting with me on TextSavvy — even made a direct attraction to him. Sadly, the hashtags #TextClavvy and #Savvicular haven’t taken off in the best way I hoped. [EDITOR’S NOTE FROM SCOTT: Mr. Rogowsky wishes to make clear that his interest in Clavicular extends only to the young man’s status as a cultural artifact — and what it signifies about the social organism that creates this kind of celebrity.]
- And am I allowed to plug myself? I co-founded and co-funded Savvy, so the sport actually ought to be known as Win Scott Rogowsky’s Cash. One may argue that I’m a funnier, kind of Jewier Ben Stein — with higher politics.
Right here’s what the Installer group is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as effectively! E-mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Sign — @davidpierce.11 — together with your suggestions for something and every little thing, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, take a look at the replies to this publish on Threads and this publish on Bluesky.
“As a fellow dad of tiny people, I’d recommend giving a sling bag a attempt. I’ve been utilizing the Fyro Citta Sling 3L each day and it’s been a recreation changer. Having my pockets, keys, headphones, cellphone all simply accessible and picked up in a single place has been nice. Particularly helpful whereas sporting a diaper bag backpack.” — kborer
“I’ve been going again to the MP3 days and ripping all my CDs. If anybody has suggestions for apps that may auto tag a large assortment of MP3s, I’ll take it.” — B
“Pok Pok and PBS Children struggle manner above their stage for teenagers video games. There’s a deep untapped marketplace for not crappy toddler video games.” — Rahul
“Re-listening to the audiobook model of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos after his passing final week, whereas impatiently ready on my special-edition hardcovers to return.” — Marcos
“Obsessively listening to the podcasts: Nicely There’s Your Downside, Tran Girlismo, and Remap Radio.” — Oliveoiltrain
“Reverse: 1999 launched the newest model of Critter Crash, an extremely cute auto battle mode (suppose TFT from Riot). Whereas I’ve liked the entire recreation since day one, I really like this mode they launch 2-3 instances a 12 months greater than something.” — Kiro
“Take a look at Every little thing Climate on iOS and Android. It makes use of the Nationwide Climate Service as its supply, and is effectively introduced. And virtually all of it’s free. It even consists of area climate.” — Kurt
“Hulu’s Paradise, Season 1 and Season 2 (up to now). See what the human spirit goes by means of and the way it prevails in unprecedented instances.” — Sam
“This new video / mini documentary on HyperCard, a forgotten gem of the golden age of the Mac that permit extraordinary individuals create purposes. A form of net earlier than the net.” — Gregory
“Pentaton: it simply performs music. This hid beneath my radar for too lengthy, however lastly an excellent clear, tremendous targeted, sufficiently audiophile interesting FLAC file participant that focuses on simply enjoying recordsdata effectively and is DAC and headphone conscious as well. Better part is you simply level it at a folder of recordsdata and that’s it: no copies, no recordsdata renamed, no bizarre further directories of wierd UUID aliases… it simply reads recordsdata and their tags. And performs them again *completely*.” — Noah
Permit me some very temporary self-promotion: The brand new season of Model Historical past launches this weekend! We’re getting higher and higher at making this present, and I actually love the six episodes on this season. First up is Furby, which is a very wild episode. It drops this Sunday.
To that finish, I’ve a favor to ask. We created new pages for Model Historical past on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and I might be so grateful for those who’d subscribe or comply with one or all of them. Rising new issues is admittedly onerous, and I actually love this present, and we now have large plans for it. So take a look at the brand new episodes, like, subscribe, inform your mates, maintain their eyes and ears open whereas they test it out too, and know I’m eternally grateful. The Installerverse stays undefeated.