Hello friends! Welcome to Installers No. 67, your guide to the best and eve– The best things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy Switch week, and you can also read all the back issues at Installers main page.)
This week, I’ve been watching Black Pigeons AND The extraordinary life of Ibelinreading about Lorne Michaels AND rodeos AND Ben Shapiro, RESTARTING Twin Peaks in honor of David Lynch, entering nervously Lemon 8 AND RedNote, catching up on old episodes of Working it out, and seeing a lot Balatro strategic video.
I also have for you my most anticipated device of the year, the new season of Leaving workan incredibly cool tech design showcase to explore, an awesome AI productivity tool, and so much more. This week has been wild, with the potential ban on TikTok and the upcoming US inauguration and seemingly 40,000 other things going on — but we’ve got some great ways to decompress. Let’s dive in.
(As always, the best part of Installers it’s your ideas and advice. What are you reading / watching / playing / cooking / building / shredding this week? Tell me everything: installer@teverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it Installerstell them to subscribe here.)
decline
- Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo is launching this thing in typically weird, typically Nintendo-y fashion – so all we’ve really seen of the new device is a two-minute video with some details and excitement. But I’ve seen enough. This is the Switch successor I was hoping for.
- Leaving work season 2. I just rewatched the first season and enjoyed it even more the second time around. One of my favorite shows in years, and by all accounts, the second season is worth the wait. I’d put the first season up against any season of anything, so that’s high praise.
- Nokia Design Archive. A group of researchers spent several years piecing together a massive, interconnected history of Nokia’s design work — from its quirky phone concepts to its biggest ideas for the future of everything. You could spend weeks digging there.
- An update on our family. As a still young father, I pass one LOT time thinking about how much of my personal and family life to share online. This story is, like the opposite: what if you create a personal and family life only to share it online? It’s a wild ride.
- Donkey Kong Country Returns HD. While you’re waiting for the new Switch, here’s a new game for the old one. I love Donkey Kong like a lot of people love Zelda and Mario, so the idea of an updated, improved, super-challenging side scroller is right up my alley.
- “Matrix Science with Laurence Fishburne.” A somewhat unexpected episode of Neil Degrasse Tyson StarTalk podcast, but oh BOY was it fun to hear Morpheus himself talk through the red pills, the lack of spoons, and MATRIXS ‘ the deepest thoughts about everything.
- Raycast focus. Raycast has become the first app I install on a new Mac and I use it for everything. Love this new feature, which can block specific apps or sites — and uses a countdown timer to help you stay focused.
- SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. Another one for SNL’s 50th anniversary content drive: a four-part NBC docuseries about some of the biggest moments in the show’s history. It’s an officially sanctioned thing, so don’t expect fireworks, but it’s a fun dive into the archives.
- ChatGPT Tasks. or great basic feature so far, and pretty messed up – made up a dentist appointment I didn’t have? — but I’m really intrigued by the combination of a to-do list app and chatbot. I have it send me a new oatmeal recipe and workout idea every morning, and it’s a pretty cool system.
Split screen
It is an unintentional tradition in threshold that young people always seem to start out in very chaotic situations. Often, it’ll be a writer’s first day, like iPhone launch day, or it’ll be 15 minutes out of HR orientation and Elon Musk will suddenly buy Twitter. ABOUT Todd Haseltonour new deputy editor for reviews and commerce, chaos was CES. Todd started earlier this year and was immediately inundated with 90,000 stories about strange gadgets no one had ever heard of. Welcome to the team!
I like to ask new questions eve employees to share their home screen with us to see what we can learn about them from how they use their phone. You can fake it at work, but you can’t fake the phone, you know? Here’s Todd’s home screen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
Phone: iPhone 16 Pro Max. I’ve been using the larger iPhone for years. I also have an old Galaxy Z Fold 3 that I’ve been thinking about upgrading to another foldable phone.
Wallpaper: It’s a photo of me at my Lehigh University graduation with my grandfather and uncle, who also went to Lehigh. They are my role models. It’s a reminder to myself to work hard and be grateful for what I have. (My twin brother is cut in this shot. Sorry bro.)
My lock screen background is a rotating photo of my family.
Applications: Photos, Calendar, GroupMe, Xbox Cloud Gaming, ChatGPT, Gmail, The Verge, Messages, Phone, Safari, Camera.
David, are you sure you wanted me to do this? It might be the most boring home screen you’ve ever published. It’s pretty much the default.
GroupM it’s to stay in touch with my college friends and also where my town’s volunteer fire department keeps in touch. Since the summer I have not been as active as I would like. Xbox Cloud Gaming it’s there because i always tell myself i’ll have all this free time for gaming on the go. But I don’t.
The photo frame widget rotates photos of trips I’ve taken and photos of family members. This is a photo from my brother’s wedding in Santa Monica.
Just in case people think it’s rigged: eve the icon was there before i started. I have been reading since the site started and agreed before joining.
I also asked Todd to share some things he cares about right now. Here’s what he said:
- Rest angle by Wallace Stegner. I just started it, so don’t ask me what it’s about. I spend most nights reading on a Kindle Paperwhite. If you’re looking for other recommendations, though, here are some other books I just finished and enjoyed: trust by Hernan Diaz, Stoner by John Williams, and Little Friend by Donna Tartt.
- I mostly play on Friday nights with my college friends from around 9pm to 11pm. (We’re all dads now, so… early bedtimes.) It’s a ritual we started during the pandemic, and it’s a good and completely foolproof way for us to stay in touch. Gamers will hate it, but now it is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 with the Nuketown map on repeat. Just a classic map.
- I was really into McDonald’s two cheeseburger meal. There is a small restaurant nearby with good prices, and the burgers are strong. The get DoorDashed. Starting a new job is always a little stressful (in a good way!), and this is my stress food, I guess. Dasher is waiting for my order now.
Crowdsource
Here’s what it is Installers community is in this week. I want to know what you are up to right now too! Email installer@theverge.com 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 more great recommendations, check out the answers to this post in Topics AND this post on Bluesky.
“Independenta simple mood tracking app that works like a micro-diary. I’ve always struggled with journaling, but this makes it easy (it only takes 15 seconds) to capture my thoughts and details about my day.” – Austin
“The days of Sakamoto on Netflix. It’s an anime about the best assassin in the world who retired and settled down with a family. Very tropical, I know. Mostly just looking to see this cute ass.” – Ryan
“Trying to improve in Dutch and I downloaded the excellent Mochi the application. Like Anki, but much better in every way.” – Hannes
“I just found out Stremio and I have a deep feeling that it will change my life forever. Well, at least the way I consume media. With all the price hikes and many services not available in the Netherlands, this seems like a great alternative.” – Jasper
“MacDroid. I always back up my full resolution photos to an external hard drive every few months in addition to Google Photos, but damn is that hard to do on a Mac. I tried MacDroid today and immediately signed up for a lifetime subscription. So much time and stress saved!” – Josh
“Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Xbox. It’s the best Indiana Jones thing done in decades. I’m shocked at how much fun it is to explore and how they hit the tone perfectly. And wow, the voice actor nailed young Harrison Ford. It’s almost scary.” – DSquiz
“I started reading One piece from early last year after viewing the Netflix show — it’s very fun, enjoyable, the art is great, and the characters are all lovable and easy to relate to.” – Luis
“I came back to Apple Arcade JUST to play Pocket Card Jockey: Ride on! A diamond horse racing game developed by Game Freak (the Pokemon folks), originally for the 3DS, even though it looks VERY portable. It’s so much fun and I can’t stop playing.” – Sit down
“Amazing Safari extension Keyword research! It allows you to perform custom web searches by adding a keyword or letter, so adding ‘wiki’ or ‘your’ will search for those relevant sites instead of your default search engine.” – JME
“Have you tried News Tower yet? Total blast.” – Dave
MEMORANDUM
The Australian Open is happening now, which means it’s the part of the tennis calendar where I wake up in the morning and it’s 6am and somehow half the matches are already over and something really exciting is inevitably happening. It’s cute. The tennis has been great, but the real story of this year’s tournament is YouTube channel.
For complicated rights reasons, the organization behind the Open is streaming the matches on YouTube, but not in the way you’d think: everything is animated live and everyone looks like Wii Sports characters. It’s deeply weird and extremely weird, but against all odds, it totally works? The Guardian it has a good story how it works and why it is needed. I’ve always thought these “alternative streams” were just nonsense, but I think there might be something here. Next year: real tennis, but make it Mario Tennis. I will be there.
