Apple’s new Airtags are a great upgrade for a simple gadget

Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 114 is your guide to the best and edge-The most wonderful things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send in Sagittarius Raiders Tips, and you can also read all old issues on the site Installer Home.)

This week I was reading about it Wind turbines and Phishing scams and Oboewhile keeping organization to a very minimum care Beautiful application and tester Aviation pioneer Bluesky customer, spends a lot of time researching Electric snow shovelsI finally upgraded my trusty podcast headphones to New Beyerdynamic pair, Start your umpteenth rewatch Big storeand debating whether I would trade my iPhone 16 for an iPhone 17 or a Pixel 10. I think I would choose the Pixel.

I also have a great Apple device upgrade, a great new AI search tool, a couple of excellent new things to watch, new Sonos gear, and so much more.

And I have a question: What is your favorite piece of technology outside of Big Tech? I hear from a lot of people who, for various reasons, want to get rid of devices and services from Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, or any number of other companies. If you had a great experience, tell me about it! I installer@theverge.com And @davidpierce.11 ​​​​on Signal, I want to hear all your likes. Right now, there’s a lot to do, so let’s go.

(As always, the best part of… Installer These are your thoughts and advice. What are you reading/watching/listening to/playing/building from snow 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.)

Maybe he doesn’t know this, but Christopher Mims (who I think I never referred to as anything other than “Mims”) gave me some of the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten. Back when we were working together The Wall Street Journal, Where he is a technology columnistHe taught me a lot about how to be clear and clear, and most of all how to say the thing you mean above.

Case in point: Mims’ new book, How to artificial intelligencewhich was just released this week. I’m most of the way through this, and so far it’s excellent; Simple, comprehensive, and understandable, it doesn’t devote itself to explaining why AI is a god that will save us, or to try to tear it apart. This is exactly what the title suggests. it’s great.

I asked Mims to share his home screen, and some of the things he’s interested in, just to see if he’s actually completed the AI ​​or not. I have good news:

Phone: I had to check the settings. I know. It’s the iPhone 15. I’m a “work gave me this phone” guy. It doesn’t really matter these days, I can’t believe anyone cares if their phone is newer than it was 2-3 generations ago, unless they are constantly using it for photography or videography.

wallpaper: Apple’s generic statement is “here’s the Earth from space now.” I like to remember that we are, as Carl Sagan said, a speck of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Applications: Google Keep, Google Tasks, Chrome, Hark, Google Maps, Spotify, Overcast, BitCam, Camera, Phone, Messages.

In the lower left corner is BitCam. If you have an attachment to the native black-and-white dithering algorithm, and love the way high-contrast images look, this is the software for you. On the right side is Listenwhich I love because it’s the only podcast cutting/assembling tool I know and its editorial judgment is great.

I also asked Mims to share some of the things he’s interested in now. Here’s what he sent back:

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 was obsessed The root trees dieda game in which you play a detective in 1998 trying to piece together a family tree. You can do this using era-appropriate Internet search engines and a string cork board. Also, the soundtrack that plays is the perfect atmosphere. -Jonathan

“I use Apple’s Home app to control all the smart things in the house. I installed Wemo light switches six years ago. They have never worked consistently. I recently replaced them with other devices.” Those that support the tabu article. Whether it’s Matter or newer technology from six years ago, they haven’t lost touch with the Home app once. Highly recommended. – Rayyan

“the Comet Wake It is a portable modular Linux system and I fell in love with it! -@Trains and the Internet

“I’m playing through Halo: Master Chef CollectionAnd we’re sorry about how badly Microsoft dropped the ball with this popular IP. (You had Cortana, who would have been your awesome AI assistant, but you killed him?! And… aura TV series! And the latest aura Games!)” – Anshuman

“monitoring Send helpaka the third gory horror movie I’ve seen in theaters this month. – how

“I found out recently Flighthas become my go-to app when I need to dive into focused work. It’s a really cool mix of ideas, and as an aviation geek, it’s a great app for me to use while I’m trying to stay focused on work or another activity. It needs to reduce the number of clicks needed to start a session, but it’s a really solid idea as it recently added a mode where you can watch the clouds fly by the plane window while focusing. —Adam

“for me VIEW Snowsky tablet My DAP AliExpress order arrived last weekend, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it this week. It’s designed to connect once again to a previous generation of music players, this time a mini-disc unit. The unit is very small (palm-sized), can fit a large microSD card in it, and has great sound quality and power output. – Brian

“The latest Pokemon TCG Pocket The update just dropped this week, so I’ll be tearing apart packs and building some fun new decks. Excited about the Stadium cards finally appearing in the game! — Bob

“I wanted to recommend Blood on the clock tower 🙂 It’s a social deduction game, similar to Mafia or Werewolf or… Between usbut it has the added advantage of making every role useful and players can participate even after they die. This is a really great moment, thanks to No rolls banned and Beautiful Time Association Featuring a lot of the Dropout team in their recent games. I love watching all the demos of how to play the games, and I hope to find a group to play with one day! — Jack

I’ve written about this before here, but I’ve become quite enamored with the concept of local software first. The idea is straightforward: This software shouldn’t be designed on the assumption that it’s accessing a bunch of your data in the cloud, but that everything it needs is already on your device. It should still have all the features you want, be available everywhere, and be fully collaborative, but it should come with all the speed and security of a bunch of files on your computer. Loading screens are the enemy.

The team at Ink & Switch Wrote a great article I’ve been around the first local program for a while, and I found it this week CultRepo’s YouTube doc is 10 minutes long Who digs into this concept further. The whole thing just makes sense For me, local-first principles are really changing the way I search for and use software. Files to win.