Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer<\/em> No. 151, your guide to the best and Verge<\/em>-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, welcome, get psyched because it\u2019s officially Bad Holiday Movie Season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer<\/em> homepage<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, I\u2019ve been reading about Andrew Garfield<\/strong><\/a> and GTA VI<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and sexy joke thieves<\/strong><\/a>, finally actually watching The Sopranos<\/em><\/strong><\/a>for the first time (I know, I know), mourning the end of Salon<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,<\/em> reinstalling the new and extremely improved Notion Calendar<\/strong><\/a>, testing the new Keurig Alta<\/strong><\/a> coffee machine, reviewing the iPad Mini<\/strong><\/a> and the touchscreen MacBook Pro<\/strong><\/a>, and really thinking about just throwing it all away and buying an Enough Phone<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also have for you the long-awaited return of a classic Zelda<\/em> game, a monster movie worth the trek to the theater, a couple of great new phone accessories, awesome retro headphones, and more. Let\u2019s do it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (As always, the best part of Installer<\/em> is your ideas and tips. What are you watching \/ reading \/ playing \/ listening to \/ hacking onto an E Ink display this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com<\/a>. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer<\/em>, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We talked last week about Readwise Books<\/strong><\/a>, the new app that\u2019s a mix of Kindle, Goodreads, and Strava. I\u2019m a longtime fan and user of Readwise Reader<\/strong><\/a>, so I wasn\u2019t shocked that I liked the new app a lot, too. And I\u2019ve heard from a bunch of you that you do, too!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve talked to Tristan Homsi, one of the Readwise cofounders, a few times over the years, and have always enjoyed hearing his thoughts about reading, apps, and digital products in general. I asked him to share his homescreen to see if I might be able to get a hint about what he\u2019s reading and the other stuff he thinks is good. (I also asked Daniel Doyon, Readwise\u2019s other cofounder, to share, and he didn\u2019t respond. Daniel is dead to me.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s Tristan\u2019s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The phone:<\/strong> iPhone 13 (!).Believe it or not, I chose to buy this relatively outdated phone last year\u2026 not because it\u2019s my favorite form factor or anything, but because it\u2019s closer in specs to the median device our Readwise users have and helps me build a bit more user empathy with them. I\u2019m able to catch performance regressions and bugs in Readwise that the developers on our team with Duos and Pro Maxes and such miss.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Let me tell you though, iOS 26 itself does not work amazingly on an iPhone 13. Lots of lagging and janky animations. I am somewhat bought into the conspiracy theory that they make the old phones suck so you buy a new one\u2026 not so much intentionally, but rather by virtue of just making each successive iOS use more and more resources, doing fancier and fancier things.\u200b<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The wallpaper:<\/strong> My lovely wife and my cat Sophie \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The apps:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Of course, I have all three Readwise apps front and center. Highlights<\/strong><\/a> and Reader as app icons, and Readwise Books in widget form at the top! It\u2019s a great reminder to jump back into your current book (I\u2019m reading Apple in China<\/em><\/strong><\/a> right now\u2026 speaking of Apple!) instead of scrolling twitter (on a later page), and seeing my friends currently reading really makes me want to jump in and join them \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also am a huge fan of the somewhat-defunct social app BeReal<\/strong><\/a>. It had its moment in 2022, but quite a few of my friends are still on there! You post once a day, can see what your close friends around the world are doing, and most importantly can\u2019t get sucked in for more than two minutes since it limits you to a random photo or two a day! I still post basically every day, and have almost five years of memories in there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Speaking of getting sucked in, I don\u2019t have it pictured on my home screen, but I also have Clearspace<\/strong><\/a> installed, which helps me stay off of all social media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Some other apps shown on the homescreen: \u201cauto eight\u201d is something I vibecoded to better control my Eight Sleep<\/strong><\/a> mattress (lol)\u2026 Strava<\/strong><\/a> and Runmeter<\/strong><\/a> are awesome for tracking my runs\u2026 and Bay Wheels<\/strong><\/a> is my main mode of commute around San Francisco daily.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also asked Tristan to share a few things he\u2019s into right now. Here\u2019s what he sent back:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s what the<\/em> Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you\u2019re into right now as well! Email<\/em> installer@theverge.com<\/em><\/a> or message me on Signal \u2014 @davidpierce.11 \u2014 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we\u2019ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to<\/em> this post on Threads<\/em><\/a> and<\/em> this post on Bluesky<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFinally started reading Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (recommend); finding the Duo to be a perfect foldable reading device. Going to have to take a break to save Princess Zelda though.\u201d \u2014 Will<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m playing around with CutWire\u2019s Drift<\/strong><\/a> video editor (alt to CapCut) and I\u2019m honestly shocked at how high-quality it feels.\u201d \u2014 Kolin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cA wonderful Belgian developer put together an alternative Kobo EPUB reader called Kobalt<\/strong><\/a> that I\u2019ve been really enjoying. It\u2019s got a very clean and well-designed UI with a bunch of really nice features that make it a much more enjoyable experience to use. There\u2019s even an Android app, so I also put it on my Supernote Manta<\/strong><\/a> to use with larger format content. So much nicer than KOReader!\u201d \u2014 Dylan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAs a mourning Arc user, I\u2019ve been on the search for my next browser, especially one with a good mobile experience and this one is AWESOME. Lens Browser<\/strong><\/a> feels like what Arc Search on mobile would have become had they stuck with it. Currently only mobile for now, but it does have a Mac toolbar companion for sharing links.\u201d \u2014 Garrett<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSince Arc Search is going away, I\u2019ve been using Lens<\/strong><\/a>, and it\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ve been wanting in a mobile browser. It\u2019s the perfect Arc Search replacement.\u201d \u2014 Corey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy Boox Picco<\/strong><\/a> literally just arrived today. So now I\u2019m trying to churn through Fellowship of the Ring<\/em><\/strong><\/a> on it, plus my economics textbook.\u201d \u2014 Lukas<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to get back to the gym, and my motivation is I can only watch a show I want to watch if I\u2019m on the treadmill. I\u2019m finally starting Barry<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Turns out, good show!\u201d \u2014 Ben<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWell, Zelda<\/em>…, but also World of Warcraft Forever<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, but also 007 First Light<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (which is letting everyone play the opening for free).\u201d \u2014 djstarburst<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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