Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer<\/em> No. 148, your guide to the best and Verge<\/em>-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, welcome, hope you\u2019re enjoying all your pumpkin-flavored everything, 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 Marc Andreessen<\/strong><\/a> and the future of math<\/strong><\/a> and Mike Tomlin<\/strong><\/a> and Citizens United<\/strong><\/a>, reminiscing about the heyday of MySpace<\/strong><\/a>, sending this article<\/strong><\/a> to everyone as an apology for my bad texting, listening to the Pet Shop Boys\u2019 new Alan Turing album<\/strong><\/a> and Dwarkesh Patel\u2019s thoughts on AI<\/strong><\/a>, barely keeping myself from preordering an iPhone Duo<\/strong><\/a>, asking a lot of questions about that \u201cflying\u201d Tesla Roadster<\/strong><\/a>, and endlessly shopping for tripods to hold my phone for social videos. I have thought way too much about tripods this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also have for you a couple of huge new tech docs and a whole bunch of gadgets worth a look. Gadget season, baby! Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (As always, the best part of Installer<\/em> is your ideas and tips. What are you watching \/ reading \/ listening to \/ playing \/ throwing in the trunk 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 I\u2019ve been reading Kevin Roose<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s new book, The AGI Chronicles<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, this week, and I truly cannot recommend it enough. We sometimes make fun of Kevin for loving (and being loved by) AI too much, but this book is fabulously reported, has taught me a ton, and makes so many things about the AI industry make a lot more sense.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n And Kevin\u2019s not done! He and (friend of Installer<\/em>) Casey Newton are getting ready to launch their new show, Machine Gods<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, sometime next week. (If you were a Hard Fork<\/em> fan, you\u2019re gonna need to be listening to this one.) So I figured now was a good time to see how Kevin gets it all done \u2014 and whether he\u2019s just Claude Code-d himself out of existence altogether. Have I even been texting with the real Kevin this week? WHO KNOWS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s Kevin\u2019s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The phone:<\/strong> iPhone 15 Pro (barely works, battery life is a joke, storage is full, but I\u2019m holding out until I can preorder the Duo and become a new man).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The wallpaper:<\/strong> A photo of my son fishing at the Russian River.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The apps:<\/strong> Voice Memos, WhatsApp, Signal, Spotify, Google Maps, Safari, Day One, Brick, Stash, Superwhisper, Substack, Slack, Town, Apple Notes, Phone, Gmail, Messages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m a big dictation guy, I barely type anymore, and I use Superwhisper<\/strong><\/a> and Voice Memos for everything. I vibe-coded a Pocket replacement called Stash<\/strong><\/a> that is still a delight many months later. (Building your own apps is so fun!) And I\u2019m running a swarm of AI agents that includes Skynet (my ChatGPT Dot<\/strong><\/a>, which I use mostly for personal tasks), Hootie (my work agent, which runs on an app called Town<\/strong><\/a> that Casey got me into), and Nancy (my Muse<\/strong><\/a> agent, who trades Kalshi on my behalf and has lost me $41 to date).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I have a \u201cred flags\u201d app folder for social media and everything else I know is rotting my brain, a \u201cgreen flags\u201d folder for things that feel vaguely enriching, and an AI folder for all of my silly little bots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also asked Kevin 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 \u201cI\u2019ve been using the markdown writing app, Em<\/strong><\/a>. I\u2019m a longtime fan of iA Writer, but this plays so nicely with Ghost that my head has been turned.\u201d \u2014 Chris<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cJust got my Bose Wired Earbuds<\/strong><\/a>, and I haven\u2019t felt this excited and happy for a pair of earbuds since AirPods.\u201d \u2014 Sai<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been liking the app Shelf & Story<\/strong><\/a> for finding good books for my kids. Goodreads never quite cut it for me for that.\u201d \u2014 Martha<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMade by the founder of TV Time, Bingers<\/strong><\/a> is my new favorite media tracker. Lots of really neat features (like easily updating dates and automatically populating a watchlist). Still can be improved but it\u2019s off to a great start and is the first thing I reach for over Letterboxd these days.\u201d \u2014 pegasusisme<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cJust finished the most recent season of Jet Lag: The Game<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Probably their best one yet. A fantastic jumping on point for anyone new to it.\u201d \u2014 Shane<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cCarrie<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, as soon as my internet provider resolves the outage affecting my area.\u201d \u2014 Kev<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDoing my annual listen to Snow Crash<\/em><\/strong><\/a> \u2014 very much worth picking up in current times for anybody who has or hasn\u2019t had the pleasure (Jonathan David is a PLEASURE to listen to).\u201d \u2014 Jonathan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cStill playingFire Emblem: Fortune\u2019s Weave<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Completed my first path. Just in time for the expansion pass to get announced.\u201d \u2014 Connor<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been really hooked on small roguelikes, like the city-builder meets Balatro<\/em> in Combolands<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and the same twist but billiards in Ultrapool<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. I\u2019ve been playing them on the Steam Deck which is good with some mouse tweaks, but you need to be comfy with the trackpads.\u201d \u2014 Scott<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I mentioned last week that I\u2019ve switched notes app, this time to Capacities<\/strong><\/a>. Again. A few of you asked what finally clicked for me, and the answer is really simple: Capacities has this concept of \u201cobjects\u201d instead of \u201cnotes,\u201d which treats everything you save as a discrete type of thing. Images get treated and categorized one way; PDFs another; text notes another. Everything lives on its own, but is also organized by tags, dates, and however else you want. Getting this setup right is a lot<\/em> of work, because you have to create and tune each object the way you want, but I spent an afternoon watching football and entering metadata and suddenly I can find things in my notes app again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This system won\u2019t be for everybody \u2014 even at its best it\u2019s pretty fiddly \u2014 but if you do wind up mucking around in Capacities, stare long and hard at this page in the documentation<\/a> first. It\u2019ll help.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/10\/Kevin-Roose-homescreen.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C0%2C100%2C100&w=2400\"\/)
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n