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.
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 88, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy heat dome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This is the last Installer for me this summer! It’s baby time. Starting next week, you’ll be in the very good hands of Jay Peters, who has some awesome stuff lined up for you. He’ll be in the Installer inbox, so please, send him emails, hit him up with questions, and tell him everything you’re into right now. Y’all are going to have fun together.
And in the interest of filling up the Gmail for Jay, I have a question: what’s your favorite non-famous app? A few of you have recently reached out to remind me that yes, everyone knows Instagram and WhatsApp, but all of us power users take so much software for granted and forget that not everybody knows about them. So let’s share the stuff we know all too well! My current favorites are probably Raycast, Mimestream, Unread, Raindrop.io, and Deck.Blue. But I want to hear all of yours, too.
All right, enough from me. I also have for you a bunch of new stuff to watch while it’s too hot to go outside, the best-looking VR headset I can remember, a new Death Stranding game, and much more. Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here. It’s free, and you get it a full day early!)
The Drop
Screen share
A few months ago, I went from not knowing Travis Larchuk at all to suddenly spending a lot of time together. We’ve been working on… a project that I can’t tell you about yet but am excited to tell you about very soon. And, as of next week, Travis is also going to be the supervising producer of The Vergecast, which means we’ll be making a truly alarming amount of stuff together going forward. The Vergecast will not be as good as Travis’s podcast about jam and seltzer, but we’ll do our best.
In addition to his podcast prowess, Travis is also slowly teaching me about Dungeons & Dragons, has more weird game show ideas than anyone I’ve ever met, and knows a truly alarming amount about the Guitar Hero franchise. I asked him to share his homescreen with us, as I like to do with new Verge folk — here it is, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
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