A new app for reading, watching, and listening to the internet
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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 51, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I hope you love spy shows as much as I do, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about cobalt miners and religious AI and the history of the Moleskine, listening to pop-punk Disney songs on repeat, finally starting The Sopranos (I know, I know), soundtracking my workday with the Earth.fm app, giving Tweek another whirl for simple task and calendar stuff, and spending too much time debating whether NFL Sunday Ticket is worth the money. It’s definitely not, but it also, like, kind of is.
I also have for you everybody’s favorite new PlayStation game, a new documentary about money in sports, two new cameras worth a look, and a terrific E Ink note-taking device. Oh, and apologies: I included the wrong link to my homescreen icon pack last week. (Luckily, the one I did link to is also very good.) Mine are actually from Nate Wren’s Lines pack.
Anyway, so many gadgets this week! Let’s dig in.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be watching, reading, playing, cooking, downloading, or building this weekend? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)
- Reeder. It’s a podcast app, a YouTube queue, an RSS reader, a social feed, and a whole bunch more, all in one place. (And for Apple devices only.) It’s a reading app for feeds from all over the internet, it’s gorgeous, and as we talk about the fediverse and the future of the web, this is the kind of app that gets me really excited.
- Slow Horses season 4. I avoided this Apple TV Plus show for a while because I didn’t love the book, which is very well done but just kind of… slow. (I eventually soldiered through the first third of the first book, at which point it does start moving.) The show is not slow. It’s just funny and smart and exactly the right amount of action-packed.
- Astro Bot. I promised myself I was going to wait until Black Friday to buy a PS5… but this new game, an adorable platformer that seems to have charmed absolutely everyone who tried it, is going to make me pull the trigger sooner. Seriously, people love this game.
- The Remarkable Paper Pro. This thing is pure E Ink overkill, with an overengineered color display and a bunch of extremely fancy features. It’s like $800 for the whole setup including the keyboard, which is an awful lot, but this is a heck of a note-taking device.
- The Money Game. A miniseries about the NIL revolution in college sports, which is actually a story about social media and the internet and the way that everybody, including athletes, struggles to balance life and content.
- Circle to Search for music. Forget Gemini — Google’s most clever AI features are all happening through Circle to Search. Google’s song lookup tool is the best in the biz, and with Circle to Search and Android 15, you can get at it from anywhere.
- The Peak Design Outdoor Line. Peak Design’s stuff is just always great, and the new line of rugged gear looks like a winner. (Don’t be thrown by the Kickstarter, it’s just how the company rolls for some reason. PD is legit.) I’ve recently become a sling convert for daily use, and I’m very into the new one here.
- The GoPro Hero 13 Black. Every new GoPro is kind of the same: a little better in a bunch of ways but still a GoPro. And that’s fine! Adding some new lenses and improving transfer speeds goes a long way here, too.
- The DJI Neo. The other nifty camera launch of the week: a simple selfie drone that follows you around, does cool camera moves, and lands in your hand. Getting real Snap Pixy vibes from this thing, but I think this one might be a hit.
- The PlugBug with Find My. My first reaction to the idea of a wall plug with Find My support was, just, why? But then I thought about how many hotels and coffee shops I’ve left chargers in, and I think this $70 gizmo might pay for itself pretty fast. Plus, Twelve South stuff rarely disappoints.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve asked you all to share your favorite lesser-known creators. This was, as always, at least partly selfish: I love my favorites on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and the rest, but my feeds are starting to feel a little static. I had a feeling you all might be able to help me liven things up — and that maybe a few of you were looking for some good new stuff, too.
As ever, you all delivered. I got hundreds of emails, messages, Threads posts, and comments from folks with great ideas and recommendations. I hardly got any duplicate recommendations, either, which is just delightful — there’s so much good stuff out there. And rather than keep it all for myself, I figured I’d share some of the best folks I’ve been turned onto in the last couple of weeks. I’m going to mostly link to YouTube channels, both because that’s what most people recommended but also because you can find folks’ other social links from their channel pages.
(One small caveat before we dive in: I haven’t been able to thoroughly vet everything all these folks have done forever. So if someone turns out to be the worst, in whatever way, I’m really sorry. If I’m missing something I should know about, definitely let me know. But y’all rarely steer me wrong, so I have high hopes.)
No surprise, a lot of what I heard about were tech creators. Here are a bunch of the folks you recommended, in no particular order:
- Work From Hype: all about desk setups and WFH gear
- Macho Nacho: retro gaming
- Elliotisacoolguy: a very funny graphic designer
- Brandon Talbot: fitness and health tech reviews
- MobileTechReview: gadget reviews
- Brandon James Greer: a pixel artist sharing their process
- Easy Allies: video game news and reviews
- Ritvikmath: data science and predictions
- Technology Connections: everyday tech explainers
- Enrico Tartarotti: essays on how tech works and how we use it
- Byte Review: gadget lifestyle videos, especially Apple stuff
- Salem Techsperts: stories from a computer repair shop
- The Serial Port: all things tech history
Also, it turns out you all love a good video essay and explainer as much as I do, and you shared a bunch of great channels for just that:
- Paul E.T. (on movies)
- Not Just Bikes (on urban planning)
- What’s So Great About That? (on… everything)
- Answer in Progress (also on… everything)
- Kaptainkristian (on movies and TV)
- Golden Owl (on video game design)
- Blast Processing (on video game history)
- Middle 8 (on music culture)
- MinuteFood (on food)
- Calum (on transportation history)
Then there were just a lot of miscellaneous folks you all shared. Here are a few I’ve been enjoying:
- Berm Peak, all about bikes and scooters and anything you can ride on
- Slickerdrips, with lots of board game tutorials and playthroughs
- Vanwives, on van life, DIY, and off-grid living
- Boulder Creek Railroad: a model builder half working and half teaching
- Escape to rural France, a guy chronicling his attempt to rebuild a chateau
- Jelle’s Marble Runs, because marble runs are never not fun
- Adventure Chasing, a guy and his dog exploring the outdoors
I could keep going, and I’m sure I will at some point. Thanks again to everyone who sent stuff in! My watch list will never be the same, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
From now on, if you’re a Vergecast listener and you like the way the show sounds, you’ll have Erick Gomez to thank. He joined the team this week as our audio engineer and has, in his career, worked on some of the best podcasts and radio shows on the planet.
