Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 143, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, new tech season is here, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been devouring every iPhone Duo video I can find, clicking on the wonderful websites nominated for this year’s Tiny Awards, catching up on the excellent Onimusha: Way of the Sword, reading Wildwood ahead of the upcoming movie, watching the new Taskmaster series, coming to grips with Link’s new look in the Ocarina of Time remake, and fixing the flat tire on my toddler’s stroller. I’m very proud of that last one.
I also have for you new iPhones, Meta’s AI agent, revived Sony headphones, and more. It’s good to be back after a week off.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What are your favorite things you’ve watched / seen / listened to / folded recently? Drop a line to [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The iPhone 18 Pro. This is a refinement year for the Pro series, but the refinements seem like good ones, including a variable-aperture main lens, better battery, a new chip, and new colors (black!). The bad news: Their starting prices got a $100 bump, as did older iPhones. Still, the battery updates alone might be worth it.
- AirPods 5. Apple’s latest open-ear AirPods have improved active noise cancellation and, for the more expensive model, on-stem volume controls like what’s offered on the AirPods Pro. I’m still rocking the AirPods Pro 2, but when I eventually need to upgrade, I’ll seriously consider the base AirPods, especially since they start at $129.
- Meta’s Muse AI agent. Meta is trying to bring AI agents to the masses with the new Muse AI agent that you can chat with, ask to search the web for you, and connect to apps like Instagram and Gmail. It’s also free with usage limits, though messing around with it for a day or so, I didn’t come remotely close to hitting those. I was impressed with Muse’s speed, but it hallucinated a lot, including making up lyrics to a song my toddler loves.
- Sony’s WH-1000XM4C headphones. Sony is launching a surprise second generation of its well-loved XM4 headphones after the original version was discontinued last year. They look the same, but have an updated sound profile and a bump up to Bluetooth 6. Battery life is apparently a little worse, dipping down to 27 hours with active noise cancellation activated. But at $299.99 — about $150 less than what Sony sells the XM6 for — the refreshed XM4s could be a great deal.
- Philips Hue’s Play Screen Sync. This is the Hue take on a camera that sits on your TV and syncs what’s on your screen with your Hue lights. Unnecessary? Yes. Awesome? Also yes. It costs $119.99.
- Dbrand’s “MNML” accessories. Dbrand launched a line of minimal accessories with solid colors for iPhone, Pixel, and Galaxy smartphones. I don’t usually like Dbrand cases (or Dbrand’s whole vibe, really), but I think these look nice.
- Ugreen’s MagFlow Pro Magnetic Power Bank. This $149.99 power bank with a 10,000mAh capacity has liquid cooling and “visible flowing coolant.” Will that make much of a difference? I’m not sure, but I’d love to see it for myself.
- SB Nation’s new app. Our friends at SB Nation launched a new app that lets you easily follow the sports and teams you care about right from a home feed and follow live chats of games as they’re happening. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel has been working on the app, and he tells me The Verge’s forthcoming app will use the same ideas.
This week, I’m featuring somebody who I have been working with for a long time: Verge news writer Emma Roth. Emma is one of the smartest in the biz on all things streaming, can write something good on just about anything — just recently, she’s tackled topics like AI detectors and Meta child safety settlements and food recalls — and is a great person to team up on stories with. She’s a key part of our newsroom.
I asked her to share her homescreen and the apps and things she cares about. Here it is, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:
Images: Emma Roth
The phone: Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra (the last Note created!).
The wallpaper: It’s a photo I took at a local inlet! It’s a great pelican-watching spot.
The apps: My homepage might be relatively bare, but it includes the essentials: Google Messages, Microsoft Edge, Samsung Mail, and my Phone, along with shortcuts to the Google Play Store and my Camera.
That sense of organization disappears as soon as I swipe into my app drawer. The first page has the apps I use the most, resulting in a chaotic mishmash of apps like Reddit, Slack, and Sam’s Club.
Maybe showing my messy app drawer to the world is a sign that I should tidy things up a bit. I can’t remember the last time I used any app inside the Samsung folder, or tapped into my Phone from this screen instead of using the shortcut in my dock.
I also asked Emma to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:
- I’ve recently gotten back into Project Zomboid. It’s a PC game that’s basically like a cross between a hardcore zombie game and The Sims — except you’re fighting for survival instead of managing a virtual household.
- One app that’s not at the top of my app drawer (but probably should be!) is Yuka. You can use it to scan the food and beauty products across your home and grocery stores to see whether they contain risky additives. Yuka assigns a rating to everything you scan. It’s a quick and easy way to figure out whether something I’ve bought (or plan to buy) is actually harmful, without having to know exactly what azodicarbonamide or monocalcium phosphate are.
- My modded PlayStation Vita has overtaken my Steam Deck as my favorite handheld. I’ve been playing an emulated version of Final Fantasy VII. I missed out on that classic when it came out, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it now.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Bluesky and this post on The Verge.
“The newest season of Adults on Hulu / FX is so funny!! It’s a great sitcom about a group of friends trying to make it in NYC. I’ve been obsessed with “Born Slippy” by Underworld, and nearly all the remixes, it’s an oldie but a goodie!” — Cvmvrvn
“IKEA made a Skyrim mod where Matt Berry voices a KALLAX shelf.” — Sam
“I am building my collection of daily puzzles / game sites to play every day: krillion.io to try and guess the most unique answer in 25 seconds; wafflegame.net to build out a bigger wordle; www.geogridgame.com/usa to test my US geography; dartwords.com for a single word guessing game; shrinkle.org for a simple letter dropping game; and my new favorite: Rabbithole in The Atlantic app.” — Neal
“Listening to a lot of Shearling ahead of seeing them in concert early next week. Reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Watching Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping. Folding my hands and waiting patiently because technology is too expensive. Considering buying one of several chord synthesizers as a birthday present to myself: HiChord, Telepathic Instruments’ Orchid ORC-1, Nopia MK1.” — oedipa.maas
“I cannot stop using the Clicks Power Keyboard for my phone, the tactile feel of the keys is sooooo rewarding!! Forget the fold, bring back keys!” — mahoodlum
“I’m getting hyped up for the NFL season by watching Chad Powers on Hulu. That show has no business being as good as it is. It’s like if Ted Lasso was actually entertaining *shots fired*” — SpaghettiCoder
“Super into the game Sovereign Tower! I love the art style and the mechanics. I am loving tons of new indie game releases.” — Elessar_Cut_throughthenight
“The Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer album is an absolute bop.” — Brick_wall_56
Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be traveling to events for work. Should be good stuff; I can’t wait to share what I’ll be reporting on. But I’ll also miss my desk and routine at home. I’d love to hear from the Installer community: What are your favorite apps / games / tips / tricks / routines you do to keep yourself sane during work travel? Might include a few of the best tips in an upcoming issue. And maybe I’ll try a few myself while I’m on the road.