Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 147, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I missed you all, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I’m back from parental leave! Part time, anyway. Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes and tips for managing three kids. I need ’em all. This week, I’ve been reading about McMansions and data centers and sports cardsand ICANN, trying to run my life on the Dell XPS Googlebook, testing a new and very purple Kindle, reinventing my whole note-taking system now that Google Docs can handle Markdown files, listening to episode after episode of No Such Thing as a Fish,and watching all of Shrinkingbetween the hours of 1 and 5AM while feeding a baby.
I also have for you the new Facebook movie, a tech-related procedural, a couple of great new gadgets, the Star Wars game that is going to destroy my productivity, a terrific book about the AI industry, and much more. Let’s do this.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What have you been watching / reading / playing / listening to / putting in the air fryer this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The Social Reckoning. My hopes were not super high for this movie, and the reaction so far suggests it’s good but a far cry from The Social Network. (Which I just watched recently, and absolutely still rips.) Still, Aaron Sorkin and Jeremy Strong will end up in the annals of Big Tech Movies, and I will not be missing this one.
- The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro. For the first time ever, Amazon decided — and I know this might sound far-fetched — to just build an awesome tablet. And it seems it may have! There’s lots of testing to do, and I’m particularly curious about this high-end model with the fancy screen, but I’m hopeful this is the “iPad but cheaper” we’ve been waiting for. For years.
- The AGI Chronicles. However bizarre you think the AI industry is, I promise Kevin Roose’s book will convince you it’s even more so. Roose has been deep inside the AI labs for the last few years, and I think came out with the most important story in AI: how a few executives, and the relationships between them, somehow came to determine the future of everything.
- Star Wars: Galactic Racer. It’s a super high-fidelity Star Wars racing game in which you (eventually) get to pilot a podracer. That’s all I needed to hear! Oh, and if you’re a Prime subscriber, you can play it for free on Amazon’s Luna service.
- Cupertino. The folks who made The Good Wife made a show about technology, and it is exactly what you think it is. I kind of love it! What I’ve seen so far is pretty thoughtful about some complicated real-life legal stuff in tech and AI, and the procedural setup is frankly a nice break from all these miniseries and four-hour docs.
- The Surface Laptop Ultra. Microsoft revealed all the details of its most impressive laptop, and while it’s expensive ($2,600!), it also looks and sounds fantastic. Microsoft is pushing the device’s AI capabilities, but this also looks like the uncompromising MacBook Pro competition a lot of Windows users might want.
- Gears of War: E-Day. When it comes to raw, brutal combat, Gears doesn’t miss very often. This one also seems to deliver on story and exploration, which aren’t always the series’ strong points; a lot of people have been waiting for the origin-story title, and I’m thrilled the game pulls it off.
- Blockers. Michael Lewis tells the story of Elon Musk and DOGE, and in particular of the government employees who tried to stop them from running roughshod over the federal government. I really enjoyed The Fifth Risk, Lewis’ last book about the government, and I expect to like this one too.
One thing about parental leave is that it involves a lot of time with one hand free. Over the last seven weeks I’ve spent dozens, maybe hundreds of hours on the couch while a tiny potato of a baby sleeps or cries or farts on top of me. So what did I do with all that time? Goofed around on my phone, mostly. Too much Reddit, too much TikTok, mercifully at least a little reading and crosswording.
I also redid my entire homescreen, because of course I did, and I figured I’d share. Here’s my current setup:
The phone: iPhone 17. I have no desire to upgrade to the 18… but I find myself hopelessly lusting after a Duo. I must not give in.
The wallpaper: Black. I am on an endless quest to make my phone less interesting to look at, and this helps. It also helps make my phone a little less blaring when I’m looking at it in the dark, which I do a lot these days.
The apps: Unread, Instapaper, Google Maps, Capacities, Daygame, Flora, Phone, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Camera, Prism, Mimestream, Arc.
A few things I want to mention here:
- The widgets at the top are Calendars and Acme Weather. Acme is a fabulous weather app, and I love the hourly widget; Calendars is, like, fine. I switch between it and Fantastical all the time. I don’t think I like any calendar app.
- The only truly new things on my homescreen are Flora and Prism. Flora is a journaling app currently in TestFlight for Apple devices, and it is fabulous. It’s simple and straightforward, but also pulls in workout data, photos, and more to give a really cool snapshot of your day. Prism is a note-taking app that is as fast as texting yourself but with many more organizational powers. I have spent forever looking for a quick, transient way to jot stuff down and organize it later; Prism might be it.
- In case you’re following my endless search for notes apps: I’m back on Capacities, which finally clicked for me. It is a project to get the app fully customized, but it turns out to work exactly like my brain does.
- I switched from Readwise Reader to Instapaper because I recently bought a Kobo, and Instapaper is so nicely integrated into the device. I like the whole setup, but also the Boox Palma 3 is coming, so my reading universe might be in for yet another overhaul soon.
- Daygame, in the middle there, is a thing I built for myself to manage all the daily games I play — it’s just a page full of links to games, which open in various apps and tabs. I might try and spruce it up and share it more widely. Send games I should include!
Before I forget, a few more recommendations from my parental leave:
- Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Maybe the strangest movie I watched over the last couple of months, and certainly the one that made me think the most about tech and AI and the future we’re heading toward.
- Tuner. A movie about a piano tuner who falls into a world of safecracking. Nothing I say about this movie will make it sound compelling, but I promise: It’s great.
- Furious. One of the most intense, propulsive crime shows I’ve seen in forever. Could barely put it down.
- Footnotes. A really cool (Apple-only) journaling and notes app, with emphasis on taking pictures and video right next to your notes. One of the most uniquely designed mobile apps I’ve ever used.
- Podcast Shuffle. I had no idea I needed this app until I tried it. You just press a button, and it randomly plays an episode from whatever podcast or podcasts you’ve selected. I use it for falling asleep, I use it for long drives, I love not having to scroll just to get something playing.
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] or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — 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 Threads and this post on Bluesky.
“Playing StarCraft II since the announcement of a new StarCraft in 2030. Just learned that macOS will drop support of Rosetta 2 in 2028 so no more StarCraft for Mac.” — Christian
“I’m going on a 13-hour road trip, once again guided solely by an old-school Garmin dashboard-mounted GPS. (DriveSmart series; I forget what size.) I like that it’s a single-purpose device with no ads, no subscriptions, and that continues to get map updates.” — sringsmuth
“The recent Hyperfixed podcast episode about the microwave popcorn button is one of the Verge-iest non Verge podcasts I’ve heard in a long time. A BUTTON IS A PROMISE.” — MrEnthusiasm
“I recently finished playing Wolverine on PS5, and I’m blown away by its incredible story and graphics. Insomniac delivered on that unspoken promise of slashing and dashing through bad guys — it feels like a whole new level for the character and for fans of Wolverine.” — Josue
“Just saw Other Mommy. It’s like a fun amusement park ride in the form of a campy horror film.” — Kevin
“I’m building a shed. The tech angle is learning new things using YouTube, online library books, and some AI reviews of local building code pdfs to check if I missed anything. I’m probably doing it all wrong, but that’s what the fire pit is for.” — Tim
“I have fallen headfirst into retro gaming on a Nintendo 3DS XL. The catalog of DS & 3DS games is absolutely massive. Running on native, easily reparable hardware, it’s hard to beat in terms of performance and cost. Ok…back to Picross 3D.” — Jacob
“The Ezra Klein interview with the ex-OpenAI guy and the Jon Stewart interview with the other ex-OpenAI guy.” — Chung
“I have been listening to World War II by Tom Hanks from the History Channel.” — Michael
You might already know about the HTX Studio YouTube channel, but if you don’t, trust me, you need to check it out. It’s a team of makers and creators from China who are making some of the most innovative tech videos I’ve seen in years. I have watched their video about AirDesk approximately 25 times, and I want that desk more every single time I see it. The channel is a bit over a year old, and I have yet to find an HTX video that isn’t worth the time — even the one about the cow.