Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 151, your guide to the finest and Verge-iest material in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get psyched since it’s officially Bad Holiday Movie Season, and additionally you can peruse all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been study concerning Andrew Garfield and GTA VI and sexy gag thieves, eventually really observing The Sopranosfor the archetypal period (I know, I know), mourning the end of Salon, reinstalling the new and extremely improved Notion Calendar, evaluation the new Keurig Alta coffee machine, reviewing the iPad Mini and the touchscreen MacBook Pro, and really thinking concerning fair throwing it all distant and purchasing an Enough Phone.
I additionally have for you the long-awaited come back of a traditional Zelda game, a monster movie value the trek to the theater, a brace of awesome new phone accessories, notable retro headphones, and more. Let’s do it.
(As always, the finest part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you observing / study / playing / listening to / hacking onto an E Ink display this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you cognize person alternatively who power bask Installer, onward it to them and inform them to subscribe here.)
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I have a confession to make: I’ve never played this equivalent all the way through. Not certain how! Just missed it. But seeing my allies and coworkers autumn rear in affection alongside Hyrule has convinced me to get all the way into the remake. I genuinely can’t wait.
- Godzilla Minus Zero. Three years ago, Godzilla Minus One was a big hit and a amazingly awesome movie. The sequel came alongside much higher expectations, but everyone seems to concur it’s a deserving follow-up. I’m not mostly one for monster movies, but this sequence really does it for me.
- Affinity for iPad. Canva’s app now unifies all its tools in one place, fair akin on the Mac. Affinity makes ideal awareness on the iPad, and comes alongside many of Apple Pencil integration and clever touch-friendly tools. I’m no designer, but I am enthusiastic to perform alongside this as a photo editing tool.
- The Moft Dynamic Folio Case. Here’s one for all you iPhone Duo buyers. Moft’s cases are a small complex to fig out, but really cleverly designed to create your phone equal additional useful. I’m guessing this is going to be a lot improved than Apple’s weird case / kickstand thing.
- The Peak Design Kickstand Travel Battery. While we’re on the topic of kickstands, here’s the one I’m purchasing this week. Peak Design makes fine stuff, and I frequently discover that I need additional beverage at exactly the instant I desire to observe item on a aircraft or train. This one’s going correct into my backpack and likely never coming out.
- The Bambu Lab H3C. I am dangerously near to becoming a 3D Printer Dude. At $2,500, this one’s a small steep for my wallet, but I think my coworker Sean Hollister is right that this is what the forthcoming of 3D printing looks like. Simpler, additional foolproof, uncomplicated adequate equal for a goofus akin me to create several beautiful chill stuff.
- “Ranking the world’s most famous pens for journaling.” I cognize we all affection a fine pen — and Peter McKinnon does an outstanding job of breaking downward a few dozen supposedly fine pens to see which ones really clasp up. I bought additional than one pen following observing this.
- Instagram Edits for Mac. Oh, great, fair as I was eventually getting fine at CapCut! I akin the Edits mobile app a lot, and the desktop app seems to be equal a small additional powerful. Plus: free. This is how I eventually obtain downward Cristiano Ronaldo.
- The Sony MDR-3R headphones. Respect to Sony for taking the retro headphone trend all the way to its logical decision and fair releasing the headphones from the first Walkman. You’ll appearance a small akin Nathan Fielder in You Can See Everything whenever you deteriorate them, and $60 ain’t cheap, but there’s item so incredibly ’70s-era chill concerning them.
- The Motorola Signature 27. This is fair a clean tour de power of a smartphone spec sheet. Monster camera; brightest screen; elephantine battery. Also extremely chill to see a flagship phone alongside assistance for GrapheneOS, for the small Google-inclined among us. It’s expensive, and lone shipping… someday… but I fair akin that phones akin this exist.
We talked final week concerning Readwise Books, the new app that’s a mix of Kindle, Goodreads, and Strava. I’m a longtime fan and person of Readwise Reader, so I wasn’t shocked that I liked the new app a lot, too. And I’ve heard from a bunch of you that you do, too!
I’ve talked to Tristan Homsi, among the Readwise cofounders, a few times complete the years, and have continually enjoyed hearing his thoughts concerning reading, apps, and digital products in general. I asked him to portion his homescreen to see if I power be capable to get a clue concerning what he’s study and the another material he thinks is good. (I additionally asked Daniel Doyon, Readwise’s another cofounder, to share, and he didn’t respond. Daniel is deceased to me.)
Here’s Tristan’s homescreen, affirmative several info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 13 (!).Believe it or not, I chose to buy this comparatively outdated phone final year… not since it’s my favorite form aspect or anything, but since it’s nearer in specs to the median equipment our Readwise users have and helps me build a bit additional person empathy alongside them. I’m capable to capture achievement regressions and bugs in Readwise that the developers on our squad alongside Duos and Pro Maxes and specified miss.
Let me inform you though, iOS 26 itself does not activity amazingly on an iPhone 13. Lots of lagging and janky animations. I am slightly bought into the conspiracy theory that they create the old phones suck so you buy a new one… not so much intentionally, but fairly by morality of fair making all successive iOS use additional and additional resources, doing fancier and fancier things.
The wallpaper: My beautiful spouse and my cat Sophie :)
The apps: Clock, Settings, Google Calendar, Camera, Google Maps, Spotify, Bay Wheels, Oura, Eight Sleep, Auto Eight, BeReal, ChatGPT, Runmeter, Strava, Readwise Highlights, Readwise Reader, Phone, Messages, Safari.
Of course, I have all three Readwise apps forefront and center. Highlights and Reader as app icons, and Readwise Books in widget form at the top! It’s a awesome reminder to jump rear into your current publish (I’m study Apple in China correct now… speaking of Apple!) alternatively of scrolling twitter (on a afterward page), and seeing my allies currently study really makes me desire to jump in and associate them :)
I additionally am a huge fan of the somewhat-defunct social app BeReal. It had its instant in 2022, but fairly a few of my allies are motionless on there! You article formerly a day, can see what your near allies about the earth are doing, and most considerably can’t get sucked in for additional than two minutes since it limits you to a random photo or two a day! I motionless article basically all day, and have nearly five years of memories in there.
Speaking of getting sucked in, I don’t have it pictured on my residence screen, but I additionally have Clearspace installed, which helps me remain off of all social media.
Some another apps shown on the homescreen: “auto eight” is item I vibecoded to improved authority my Eight Sleep mattress (lol)… Strava and Runmeter are notable for tracking my runs… and Bay Wheels is my chief manner of commute about San Francisco daily.
I additionally asked Tristan to portion a few things he’s into correct now. Here’s what he sent back:
- I prosecute several amazing niche net blogs, which you should inspect out if you haven’t. I affection the blog Slime Mold Time Mold, celebrated for their inhabitant discipline and potato-maxxing. I additionally affection Gwern.net, Deepfates, and Dynomight… among many others!
- And of way I’m continually study books. The most latest fabrication sequence I loved was the Red Knight series — which I can lone propose if you are into dense, dark, imagination — but man, if you are, the author is a genius.
- For non-fiction, it’s difficult for me to plug item but my favorite publish of all time, The Beginning of Infinity. It’s not the easiest to get through, but if you do it volition apt alter the way you see the world, as it did for me!
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I desire to cognize what you’re into correct now as well! Email [email protected] or communication me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — alongside your recommendations for item and everything, and we’ll characteristic several of our favorites current all week. For equal additional awesome recommendations, inspect out the replies to this article on Threads and this article on Bluesky.
“Finally started study Dungeon Crawler Carl (recommend); finding the Duo to be a ideal foldable study device. Going to have to obtain a interrupt to preserve Princess Zelda though.” — Will
“I’m playing about alongside CutWire’s Drift video publishing company (alt to CapCut) and I’m honestly shocked at how high-quality it feels.” — Kolin
“A fantastic Belgian developer put together an substitute Kobo EPUB audience called Kobalt that I’ve been really enjoying. It’s got a extremely spotless and well-designed UI alongside a bunch of really nice features that create it a much additional fun cognition to use. There’s equal an Android app, so I additionally put it on my Supernote Manta to use alongside larger format content. So much nicer than KOReader!” — Dylan
“As a mourning Arc user, I’ve been on the hunt for my next browser, particularly one alongside a fine mobile cognition and this one is AWESOME. Lens Browser feels akin what Arc Search on mobile would have rotate into had they stuck alongside it. Currently lone mobile for now, but it does have a Mac toolbar companion for sharing links.” — Garrett
“Since Arc Search is going away, I’ve been using Lens, and it’s exactly what I’ve been wanting in a mobile browser. It’s the ideal Arc Search replacement.” — Corey
“My Boox Picco exactly fair arrived today. So now I’m trying to churn through Fellowship of the Ring on it, affirmative my economics textbook.” — Lukas
“I’m trying to get rear to the gym, and my motivation is I can lone observe a display I desire to observe if I’m on the treadmill. I’m eventually starting Barry. Turns out, fine show!” — Ben
“Well, Zelda..., but additionally World of Warcraft Forever, but additionally 007 First Light (which is letting everyone perform the beginning for free).” — djstarburst
“Playing the Final Fantasy Resonance demo on Switch 2 during waiting for Ocarina of Time to display up at my entrance and having a blast. It’s not spectacular, but hits the correct amount of nostalgia and gameplay for me.” — Micheal
“Been catching up on Avatar: Seven Havens, and oh my goodness, the art style, the characters, the music, the worldbuilding!!!??? It’s all so caller and delightful and human!” — Olof
I’ve mentioned Kagi a bunch of times in this newsletter — it has been my default hunt motor for the final few years, and I can’t propose it extremely enough. (What if Google, but good, you know?) The difficulty alongside Kagi is it expenses $10 a month, which is a lot to ask whenever Google is free. But as of this week, you can now at smallest try it for yourself, since Kagi volition provision you 50 liberated searches before equal asking you to sign up. You get 100 additional whenever you do, equal before you pay.
If you hunt a lot, and young female what Google used to be, provision Kagi a whirl. I am a extremely blessed customer, and doubtful I volition be for a lengthy time.
See you next week!
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