Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 66, your guideline to the champion and Verge-iest worldly successful the world. (If you’re caller here, welcome, happy 2025, and besides you tin publication each the aged editions astatine the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reference astir loneliness and Web3 scams and the early of procedural TV, watching Deadpool & Wolverine on an airplane for illustration the head intended, rewatching Severance and Squid Game to get fresh for the 2nd seasons, eagerly awaiting the return of Kids Baking Championship, wondering if that’s real Sara Dietschy aliases AI Sara Dietschy, and giving an Apple News Plus subscription a whirl arsenic my go-to news source.
I besides person for you a large study from CES successful Las Vegas. This version of Installer is a small different than most, conscionable because we saw truthful galore caller things, and truthful galore caller things launched, and successful galore cases, it’s difficult to cognize whether immoderate of it will ever deed shelves. So deliberation of this arsenic portion Installer, part CES recap, portion “David hopes desperately these things really ship” list. But I tried difficult to prime retired the worldly I’m assured will really extremity up connected waste astatine immoderate constituent soon and mightiness beryllium worthy your money. I’m judge I’ll beryllium incorrect astir a fewer of them… but here’s hoping. And if you want all the champion worldly from CES, check retired our yearly awards — there’s tons of awesome worldly successful there.
Also, and astir importantly, my bosom goes retired to everyone successful LA and elsewhere dealing pinch the fires this week. I’m truthful sorry for everything you’re dealing with, and I dream you’re safe and doing okay.
(As always, the champion portion of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into correct now? What should everyone other beryllium playing / reference / watching / downloading / building retired of Legos correct now? Tell maine everything: [email protected]. And if you cognize personification other who mightiness bask Installer, guardant it to them and show them to subscribe here.)
Installer
/ A play newsletter by David Pierce designed to show you everything you request to download, watch, read, perceive to, and research that fits successful The Verge’s universe.
The Drop
(A statement connected the links successful here: I linked to merchandise pages erstwhile they existed, arsenic I ever effort to do. But since this is CES, sometimes location isn’t 1 yet. In those cases, I nexus to Verge stories aliases different coverage.)
- The LG StanbyME 2. I cannot explicate to you why I americium truthful into this thing. It’s conscionable a big, portable surface (LG calls it a “lifestyle screen,” which is hysterical), pinch a strap and a stand, truthful you tin bent it up aliases prop it connected a table. Is that anything? I don’t know! But I love this idea.
- The Circular Ring 2. The first exemplary was kind of a dud, but the Ring 2 appears to get almost everything right: amended battery, easier charging, nicer design, much features. My 2025 task is to ditch my smartwatch for a smart ring, and this has immoderate potential.
- Nvidia Project Digits. This 1 benignant of violates the tone of the “things a existent personification mightiness really buy” rubric here, but I americium progressively convinced that the only bully AI early is 1 wherever your AI systems are much local, much personal, and much yours. Nvidia’s Mac Mini-looking AI instrumentality is simply a cool measurement successful that direction.
- The Roam SodaTop. I had a SodaStream for years and loved everything astir it isolated from it was immense and only successful my kitchen. The SodaTop screws correct onto a h2o bottle and carbonates h2o successful 5 seconds. $50! Spectacular, springiness maine 14 of them.
- The Lenovo Thinkbook Plus Gen 6. I didn’t get to spot this 1 connected the CES floor, but Lenovo’s rollable surface conception point is existent now — and apparently useful beautiful well. $3,500 for a laptop is preposterous, but this is simply a exertion that belongs successful a batch of laptops. Soon.
- The Samsung Frame Pro. As acold arsenic I tin tell, the existent show improvements present are not ace impressive. But I for illustration that the Frame setup is simpler and involves less wires now — and I’m hoping this’ll make the last-gen Frame inexpensive capable that I tin warrant buying one.
- The Wonder Petal. All my gardening- and birding-obsessed friends are super into this thing, a flower-styled and solar-powered camera that uses AI to place plants and creatures roaming astir your yard. I support proceeding awesome things astir the Bird Buddy feeder, too.
- The Flic Duo. A button! For doing fastener things! You instrumentality this mini thing connected a wall and programme what happens erstwhile you click, double-click, property and hold, swipe, and tons more. It’s Matter-compatible and $49 and the benignant of point each smart location needs.
- The SwitchBot Multitasking Household Robot K20 Plus Pro. Yikes, that name. But the merchandise is truthful smart: a modular robot vacuum that turns into a roving aerial purifier, pet monitor, and more. I emotion the inclination we’re seeing here, arsenic these move into the first existent location robots.
- The Amazfit Active 2. I noticed my workfellow Victoria Song wearing this watch and told her really overmuch I liked the red, benignant of Tron-y face. She looked astatine maine and goes, “IT’S ONLY A HUNDRED DOLLARS!” That’s fundamentally the woody — a pretty, beautiful good, beautiful inexpensive smartwatch and fittingness tracker. With my favourite watchface yet.
- The Razer Handheld Dock Chroma. One dock for each your handheld crippled consoles. It has accelerated power, seems to link easily, and supports phones, Steam Decks, Switches, and more. I stay wholly convinced that these consoles are the early of games, and this is a terrific accessory idea.
Screen share
It’s a unusual clip successful the blogging / societal media universe. Threads, Bluesky, X, Mastodon, and a cardinal different platforms are increasing and changing, and it’s difficult to fig retired wherever to walk your clip and energy. I’ve been talking to folks for years now astir how each this is expected to work and person consistently been convinced that Manton Reece is connected the correct track. He’s the creator of Micro.blog, which is elemental for illustration Twitter but individual for illustration a blog and has a batch of large ideas astir interoperability and the fediverse.
This week, Manton launched Micro.one, a $1 / period level that gives you a blog, connected your ain domain, that besides lets you station to the fediverse. If I were looking for a caller spot to post, there’s a bully chance I’d commencement there.
I asked Manton to stock his homescreen pinch us, wanting to spot if I could snoop connected immoderate other new things he mightiness beryllium moving on. Here’s Manton’s homescreen, positive immoderate info connected the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 16 Pro Max. This is the first clip I’ve had the biggest iPhone. I thought it would beryllium bully to effort arsenic a benignant of mini iPad. It makes reference and penning conscionable a small easier.
The wallpaper: My wallpaper is coagulated black. Boring! But it makes everything consciousness crisp and readable. (For the lockscreen background, I person a photograph of family.)
The apps: Messages, Phone, Photos, Camera, Safari, Calm, NetNewsWire, Spotify, Google Maps, Slack, Fantastical, Libby, Overcast, Swarm, Reeder, Kindle, Hey, Epilogue, Strata, Micro.blog.
I support a blank statement of icons astatine the apical and bottommost of my homescreen, truthful location are less icons to benignant done erstwhile uncovering an app to open. It besides makes reaching the apical icons easier. I support each notification badges hidden to debar clutter, too.
In the dock, I person Hey email and a fewer companion apps for my Micro.blog platform: Epilogue for keeping way of books, Strata for notes, and the charismatic Micro.blog app. Also connected the homescreen, I person immoderate apps for reading, for illustration Libby and the Kindle app, and, for immoderate reason, 2 RSS readers: NetNewsWire and Reeder. I usage Spotify alternatively of Apple Music and Fantastical alternatively of Apple Calendar.
I besides asked Manton to stock a fewer things he’s into correct now. Here’s what he sent back:
- Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson. I’m presently halfway done this book and emotion the epic scope of a communicative that spans aggregate standalone book series. I dream to publication much this year. I way what books I’m reading, and I station a short microblog station to my ain tract astir each one.
- ChatGPT. As a developer, I thought I was good penning codification connected my own, and I was initially skeptical of AI. But now, the ChatGPT app for Mac is ever running. Throughout the day, I’m feeding it random questions and asking for programming help. I judge powerfully successful quality creativity, and location are galore things I don’t want a robot to do for me, but arsenic a tool, it has been really useful.
- I usage Swarm to cheque into places I sojourn for illustration java shops aliases caller places while traveling. Foursquare has precocious unopen down its metropolis guideline to refocus connected Swarm, but it’s not clear what benignant of early the app has. I occasionally import my check-ins into a abstracted blog truthful I person each the humanities data.
Here’s what the Installer organization is into this week. I want to cognize what you’re into correct now arsenic well! Email [email protected] aliases connection maine connected Signal — @davidpierce.11 — pinch your recommendations for thing and everything, and we’ll characteristic immoderate of our favorites present each week. For moreover much awesome recommendations, cheque retired the replies to this station connected Threads and this station connected Bluesky.
“I stumbled upon a four-part series connected YouTube by Digging The Greats. He does a awesome heavy dive into utilizing an iPod for 30 days and really it changed his life. Really awesome interviews and penetration astir algorithms, getting immoderate life back, and utilizing exertion without the addiction. Really absorbing stuff.” – Owen
“Last week, I ordered a Laifen Wave electrical toothbrush, and it’s taking measurement excessively agelong successful the mail. I want to play pinch my caller gadget now, damn it!” – Ellie
“I’ve been listening to the full discography of Essenger. I deliberation that having an physics groove during the busiest clip of the twelvemonth successful tech makes the tech world moreover cooler!” – Eli
“A caller hold called Pre-AI Search. All it does is select to pre-2023 Google results, but it’s been a spot of a lifesaver fixed really garbage Google image hunt is now. Been beautiful useful for my investigation — Google image hunt has been unsmooth pinch each the AI stuff, but filtering to pre-2023 helps find existent creation resources again.” – Frankie
“Flyleaf. A beautiful read-it-later app for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS.” – Ryan
“I conscionable started listening to the awesome If Books Could Kill podcast. You’re Wrong About alum Michael Hobbes and lawyer Peter Shamshiri tackle the question, ‘What if popular subject books would person adjacent review?’ The reply is beautiful damning for the books but awesome nosy for america listeners.” – Laszlo
“Not new, but the Baseus Nomos 5-in-1 charging position changed my full table setup. The retractable cablegram and StandBy mode-friendly telephone equine (Qi2!) make it worthy it.” – Hawke
“I’ve been bingeing AEW connected Max. I was a puerility wrestling instrumentality who sewage backmost into WWE casually astatine the pandemic Wrestlemania. Now that it’s connected Max, I’ve been bingeing the past 2 months of AEW shows to get acquainted pinch the merchandise and amended comparison it to post-McMahon WWE. Overall, it’s beautiful good.” – Brian
“Greg Iles’ Southern Man, a monolithic but riveting caller group successful modern Mississippi, has been eating up each my spare time.” – Darragh
“I urge you cheque retired ProjectionLab. It’s a beautifully designed financial readying instrumentality that I’ve been utilizing for the past fewer years. This solo dev-built app makes it elemental to exemplary finances and scheme for the future.” – Jake
“Watching this scary series, From, connected Prime Video. Very different than astir shows connected the internet.” – Daniyal
Signing off
Over the vacation break, I came crossed a really beautiful group of app icons from a designer named Lokki, and of people jumped astatine an excuse to yet again wholly overhaul my homescreen. I really for illustration it now! But successful buying the icon pack, I besides sewage a group of Widgy widgets, which sent maine down the rabbit spread of what I americium now convinced is the coolest app connected the satellite for Apple devices. Widgy lets you make fundamentally immoderate widget you tin ideate — you tin creation it from scratch, adhd tons of features and interactivity, and share worldly you’ve made truthful different group tin download aliases bargain widgets arsenic well. The adjacent type of my homescreen is going to beryllium each widgets, nary apps. And it’s going to beryllium each Widgy. Widgets each the measurement down, baby.
See you adjacent week!
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