is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.
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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 102, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy spooky season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you a Pokémon game worth canceling your weekend plans for, Apple’s powerful new laptop, a doc all film geeks will love, and much more.
And I have a question: what’s your favorite thing to watch on repeat? I’m talking about the show, the movie, the YouTube video, the TikTok, whatever thing you can watch a million times and not get tired of. They’re the things you put on when you don’t want to think about it. (My top two are New Girl and the Mission: Impossible movies, for instance.) I want to build a big list of the best things to watch over and over and over again. Send me all your faves!
All right, short week but still a good one. Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / cooking / mounting on the wall 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 Drop
Screen share
I always like to have new Verge team members share their homescreens here, so we can get to know them a little and also so I can subtly judge them for all their life choices. We have a few new folks here, actually, so it’s time to catch up! First up, Terrence O’Brien, our not-that-new-anymore weekend editor — I read his work for years at Engadget and have also always enjoyed his deep knowledge of music gear, but I had no idea what to expect from his homescreen setup. Maybe he doesn’t have a phone and just carries around some cool Teenage Engineering stuff?
Turns out I wasn’t entirely off base. Here’s Terrence’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: Pixel 7
The wallpaper: Just the color black.
The apps: Calendar, Obsidian, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, Kobo Books, Readwise Reader, Libby, Headspace, Phone, Camera.
My homescreen is called Minimalist Phone. I’m trying to spend less time staring at a screen in general, but especially my phone. I wanted to do my best to recreate the experience of a Light Phone or something similar, without having to give up things like RCS or ticketing apps. (I go to a lot of concerts and not having Dice, AXS, or Ticketmaster on my phone is kind of a deal-breaker.) I try to keep my homescreen focused on “productive” apps. Nothing that will encourage doomscrolling.
Obsidian is there for purely reference purposes (recipes, combination lock codes I can never remember, etc.). While the desktop app is incredible, the mobile interface is slow and kind of terrible. For actual note-taking on the go, I much prefer a Field Notes pocket notebook and a pen. I use Readwise’s Reader because it autogenerates time-synced transcripts for YouTube videos and because of its integration with Obsidian, which makes collecting research and taking notes much easier, even though I kind of hate its UI.
I also asked Terrence to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
I have rediscovered my love of Welcome to Night Vale , a fiction podcast that basically presents Lovecraftian horrors as mundane community radio updates. It’s both funny and spooky in equal measure. Now that my oldest is starting to develop a taste for the weird and creepy, this has been something we can listen to together, and he’s even inspired me to catch up on all the years I’ve missed at this point.
Hainbach is a German YouTuber and experimental musician. His whole thing is making music with test equipment from labs, tape loops, and super obscure instruments (he has a thing for vintage Italian synths, it seems). Watching someone turn a piece of telephone line test equipment into the most intense kick drum you’ve ever heard is just a blast.
When I need a dose of dopamine because I’m having a rough day, I turn to the various pitbull subreddits. The straight r/pitbulls is usually a reliable pick-me-up. But sometimes I need the extra niche boost of r/pitbulls_in_partyhats or r/PittiesAndKitties . It’s whatever the opposite of doomscrolling is.
Crowdsourced
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.
“I just finished Dan Charnas’ biography of J Dilla, Dilla Time, which was amazing — not just as a biography but as a cultural history detailing the technological developments that enabled hip-hop producers to make beats in new ways. Feels especially timely with the sad passing of D’Angelo, who features heavily in the book as someone J Dilla worked with.” — Jake
“Task on HBO is an enjoyable miniseries. Looking forward to the finale next week.” — Ibuqun
“Hades 2 has similarly consumed my gaming time in the same way Hades did five years ago. The sequel somehow improves on a game that, for me, was almost flawless and I thought could not get any better. And yet…” — Nick
“PikaPods hosts and manages instances of open-source software for pretty cheap. I migrated from Google Photos to a PhotoPrism instance. Been using it for over 4 years with no issues and zero maintenance. Costs about $10/month in my case, and PikaPods takes care of the hosting, the database, image storage, and everything. I get daily backups, a custom domain, SSH access, etc.” — Luke
“Playing Donkey Kong Country on my Miyoo Mini Plus has been a fun way to relax in the first few weeks with my newborn daughter, Amelia! Something cozy and comforting about retro games and transparent tech!” — Dylan
“I just found my perfect wallet, and I need to share it: the Topsider Bifold LT. It is small, it is beautiful, it is handmade in Hawaii, smells great (not that this was in the list of a wallet needed to have), and it’s fully customizable: I got an Olmo Pueblo with Olive Pueblo for primary and secondary colors with orange stitches. Also check out Michael’s video with the history of his wallets, where he hand-makes each one while talking about them.” — Felipe
“Strange Antiquities! incredible game in and out of spooky season.” — Allison
“My wife and I finally started watching Slow Horses and boy, what a show. Short, bingeable seasons that have great acting and writing. Each season feels different (in a good way) and reveals things in a very satisfying way. Highly recommended.” — Jonathan
“A friend recommended the Johnny Decimal organization system a while back, and I finally got around to actually doing the process after I enjoyed reading the workbook itself. I’m super excited to finally wrangle my many, many lists into order.” — Laszlo
Signing off
So my oldest kid is about to turn three, and I think we’re going to get him a Toniebox for his birthday. (Don’t tell him!) It’s a super cool idea: an audio player with these little toy-like cartridges that let kids choose what they want to listen to. It’s absurdly expensive, but I only hear good things. And this, like so many other things right now, has me wondering: are we due, or overdue, for a huge explosion in new devices? Everything you do with the Toniebox, I can technically do with a dozen other things in my house, but there’s something about the way it’s made and the actual mechanics of it that totally change the appeal.
Suddenly I’m over here, like, shopping for an iPod to see if it’ll do the same for my own listening behavior. Maybe I’m just a gadget hoarder. But maybe there’s something here. I’m curious what you think — and if you have any killer gift ideas for a three-year-old who loves Cookie Monster and Buzz Lightyear, I’m all ears.
See you next week!