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Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 119 is your guide to the best and edge-The most wonderful things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I hope your agents are doing well, and you can also read all the old issues at Installer Home.)
This week I was reading about it The future of Pixar and Flight MH370 and Sports gambling and YouTube faceAnd finally dig in Dungeon crawler Carl Having recommended it many times, I hope Rooster It remains as good as the first offer, buying A MacBook Neo I definitely didn’t need to redesign my own Obsidian Setting for Specifications of James Bedforda test Firebuds XL Headphones in, putting all my winter clothes away, then pulling them back on because it’s starting to snow. Good times.
I also have a new game to add to your daily list, a hot new Sonos speaker, a huge new book about Apple’s first half-century, a fun new take on YouTube, and so much more. Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of… Installer These are your thoughts and advice. What are you watching/reading/listening to/playing/taking on spring break this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it InstallerSend it to them and let them know Subscribe here.)
- password. New game from Josh Wardell, creator wordthis is based on a cryptic crossword concept. The concept is much more difficult to explain wordbut it tickles my pun-loving brain in a similarly delightful way.
- Sonos play. Sonos’ first new speaker in over a year is very expensive — $299 is a lot of money for a wireless speaker — but other than that it sounds perfect? Big and powerful enough to be a good living room speaker, and portable enough to throw in a bag or carry to the backyard. It works with Bluetooth too! I want one.
- Apple: the first 50 years. David Pogue’s latest book is 600 pages of deep Apple lore, beautiful photos, and lots of new information about how the company has evolved over the decades. I’ve been interested in Apple for a long time, and I learned a lot from this book.
- Puzzled PC. There are a bunch of apps emerging now that I would classify as “OpenClaw, but simpler and less risky”. People seem to like this device from Perplexity – it still requires a dedicated device and comes with some risks, but it’s much easier to operate.
- “Is the new city in California real?” I kind of forgot about California Forever, the technology-led proposal to build an entirely new city outside of San Francisco! This is a great episode of Volt A podcast that digs into how the city works. I’m looking forward to part two.
- Bigfoot emoji. The Unicode 17.0 standard is rolling out to devices — it’s currently in a bunch of betas from Apple — and it includes a bunch of good new emojis! But I feel like we now need to decide on a culturally meaningful reason to use the Bigfoot emoji all the time. For example, do you mean “greedy”? Or “I don’t think this is real”? Something else? I need your thoughts. We need to achieve this.
- Channel server. This web app puts YouTube into a legacy network of TV channels, so you can flip through videos as if you were panning your hotel room TV. But you can also import your own subscriptions, which actually makes this one of the most convenient YouTube experiences I’ve ever encountered.
- My WordPress. I almost don’t know what to do with this: You can now install a local version of WordPress that’s limited to your browser, requires no setup, and just kind of works. I think it’s WordPress as a native OS? I’m confused, but impressed by the rise of native browser apps.
Over the past few months, I’ve heard from many of you that you want to see how others are using AI. Their tools, their equipment, the things they build, everything. What is good and Installer-y idea! So, in this area, not every week but certainly from time to time, we will replace home screen sharing with AI sharing.
Firstly: Brian Lovinwho works as a designer at Notion and is also a prolific developer and designer. (If you drag sloganthe bookmarks app I mentioned here a few weeks ago, you’re already familiar with how it works.) Brian and I took a phone call the other day to talk about setting it up and how it gets everything done. Here is the screenshot he sent me, when he connects to the AI from the mobile phone:
The first thing Brian told me was a trigger he loves, which he attributes to Notion co-founder Simon Last: “Step back and think about it. How can we make this simpler and dumber and still achieve our goals?” He says he uses this prompt 20 times a day with AI crypto clients. I kinda like it.
With the caveat that his setup changes all the time, here are some of the AI applications Brian says he loves right now:
- Claude. He uses the Claude Code app for a lot of things, but he also interacts with Claude on his Mac, in… Indicatorin ZaidAnd in other places.
- Claude’s skills. Brian convinced me that building skills is very worth your time, especially if you want your AI agents to do the same things over and over again. GitHub is also full of stuff skills of othersIf you want to start there.
- monologue. (That’s the keyboard you see in the screenshot.) Voice Dictation App With iOS Smart Keyboard for Use Across Apps Brian says he uses Monologue a lot to offload tasks and projects into the brain and see what the system creates. “My first instinct is to add things to my to-do list, and I redirect my mind to do the exploring first,” he says.
- conductor. This is the app Brian says more people should get into — a way to set up and manage a group of AI agents working in parallel. Will you end up overdoing it and doing a bunch of unnecessary things? Yes. Brian has too. But learning how to multitask with AI agents is a big win, he says.
Brian told me that he currently spends most of his side project time doing back-end programming with AI and front-end work himself. (He points out that CloudCode in particular has a very specific, purple-scale style, and says it’s harder to train a bot in the right direction than to do the work itself.) But like many other people I’ve talked to, he says he’s constantly amazed at how much AI coding tools have improved. In three months, the whole setup might be different again.
Here’s what Installer community this week. I want to know what you’re up to now too! Email installer@theverge.com Or send me a message on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here each week. For more great recommendations, check out the responses to This post is on topics and This post is on Bluesky.
“I’m finally starting to understand Android Studio. I probably have too many options and tools (Claude, Gemini, Manus, Firebase Studio, Android Studio, Replit, and whatever else is in my inbox). But I’ll get there. Trying to create a notes/tasks app where notes with tasks appear on the to-do side with a link to the note taking advantage of Gemini Nano on my phone with sync with Google Calendar and Tasks. The next podcast app. – age
“My current obsession is… Cosmic Princess Kaguyawhich is showing in theaters across Japan despite only being on Netflix for a month. There’s nothing like sitting in a crowded room full of fans and watching a great movie. – Pia
“Just found out All creatures great and small. It is about a small rural veterinary practice in the 1930s in Great Britain. It’s endlessly wholesome, surprisingly poignant, and unflinchingly British. I’m airing it on PBS.” – Zach
“I was thinking of Maggie Appleton’s article, ‘Home-cooked software and barefoot developers,’ A lot lately!” – Jacob
“I have a book that I think you’ll like: The prize. This book does a great job of covering oil from the beginning to now, and along with it presents the economic background of oil then and now, the history of Western corporations versus national ownership and production, and why our modern society revolves around energy-intensive consumer fuels. -Christopher
“I’m reading Power broker And listen to 99% invisible Companion podcast With Romain Mars and Elliot Callan. – Craigcocor
“Did you try? rematch? It was released almost a year ago, and is still my favorite soccer-related game. – The house
“For someone looking for MP3 tags for all the music they rip from CDs, I would suggest: Music Brains Pickard Or (if you enjoy the command line) Beets” – Darryl
“I can’t say enough good things about him Shaboura As an AI health and fitness companion. It’s an AI-powered chatbot but it’s only focused on health. It is very simple and clean. It has its own built-in statistics but also syncs with Apple Health and other health services. It’s cheaper than the Gemini subscription and has an active and responsive developer too! -Justin
I don’t know if it’s just my YouTube algorithm, but paper notebooks really seem to be having a moment. All the productivity nerds I follow are Recommendation suddenly they Preferred analog systemsand Sharing roads In it Writing in long hand He made them I feel rational And get more done, too.
I like this idea, but I have two issues: My handwriting wasteI don’t know which notebook to buy. I suppose this means I need to buy a bunch of pens and notebooks, because the equipment will solve those problems, right? right?! Anyway, I need recommendations. If you’ve used analogue, or have been that way all the time, I’d love to hear which gear you chose. One day, perhaps, I will be able to read my own writing.
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