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Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 122 Your guide to the best and edge-The most wonderful things in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, go to Zona, and you can also read all the old issues on the site Installer Home.)
This week I was reading about it Early Apple employees and Weather apps and One-page productivity systemsto watch Avatar: Fire and Ashes On my phone in installments the way James Cameron intended, tried and failed to do so Find a better Gmail address Than the stupid person I picked 20 years ago and watch Artemis II launch Because space is awesome, buy New cup It was very expensive but very cool, replacing the soundtrack to my work This amazing DJ set From Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, listen to Darknet Diary An episode about music fraud (Thanks to Josh for the recording), and set the first live encoder thing I’ve ever made, and it’s actually pretty good.
And I also have a new way for you to read the Internet, new Mario A movie, a more private way to video chat, and more. Lots of apps this week! You like to see him. let’s do it.
(As always, the best part of… Installer These are your thoughts and advice. What are you watching/playing/reading/listening to/spreading cheese 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.)
- Sofa 5. This app is a huge update to the Installerverse favorite, and is now a great way to manage everything you want to watch, read, play, and even do IRL. I never really managed to make it stick when it was mostly just movies and shows, but now I’m thinking of it as an idea for my personal life. Apple devices only, unfortunately, but I love this app.
- browse. After a long beta period, the feed/social network/timeline reader app has finally launched, and I still think it’s a great idea. The fediverse doesn’t have to look like Twitter! It could be a lot of things! Surfing is one of those things.
- Super Mario Galaxy movie. The cast for this movie is incredibly packed, and while the reviews aren’t great, they weren’t for the last movie, and I loved this movie! I think my kid and I will watch this about 446 times.
- Hosie. I’ve only recently come to appreciate this kind of relaxing game. Life is hard, everyone; It’s nice to have something mindless to do. In this case, that thing is home renovation and decorating, which is a lot more fun than it has any right to be.
- Proton encounter. There are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about the privacy of your meetings, the recordings of those meetings, the AI summaries of those meetings, and everything else. Proton’s new tool is coded, simple, and seems to work well. I would replace a lot of Google Meets with this.
- “risk! YouTube version.“Don’t watch this thinking it’s a great episode of the series risk. Watch it for constant meme references, Ken Jennings doing his best to be young and modern, and a bunch of very answerable questions for anyone with even a little internet connection.
- First day chat. A chatbot that prompts you for a journal entry, so that each day is a conversation instead of a monologue. This is certainly not everyone’s way of journaling, but it may make it easier to start the habit. (By the way, you also have to worry about giving journal entries to AI tools, but Day One seems to handle this the right way.)
- Blur News for Android. There are not enough good RSS readers for Android. NewsBlur is one of the best, and the new version has gotten a much-needed redesign as well as a host of new organizing and discovery features. This might be my new go-to feeds app on Android.
- “Cindy Cohen – The Struggle for Digital Human Rights in Privacy advocate“Great, extended Daily show A clip with the president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which turns into an incredibly insightful take on why privacy is important and what we can do to preserve it. Much of the conversation around this has turned back and forth, but Cohn has been quite clear. I need to go read her now.
I have been using twoa note-taking and to-do list app, has been growing a lot over the past couple of years. The application does a lot, But in a very direct way, and it works the same way my mind works. All my issues with the app were with its design and polish – the app just never felt right to me.
Good, Parker Kleinthe developer behind Twos, shipped a new version of the app this week that represents a huge improvement in this regard. Every corner of the app feels cleaner and polished, and I’ve been loving it in beta over the past few weeks. The most brutal part? Everything is made with Cloud Code. Parker told me that he doesn’t write any code himself anymore – he orchestrates the process, and understands deeply how the whole thing works, but Claude is the one doing the programming.
I asked Parker to share his AI setup with us, to see what I might be able to steal for my own projects. Here are some details about it:
- “I use Cloud Mac application On my MacBook Pro, and on their Max plan. It works directly with the directory and files on my computer, and then I commit to GitHub and deploy myself. Sometimes, I use Codecloud extension in VSCodebut it kept crashing while working on New Twos, so I switched to the Claude app.
- I’m currently using Opus 4.6 and used auto mode previously Indicator They even changed their prices.”
- “This image shows Claude on the right and the iOS emulator on the left. I’ve been cropping images for a custom wallpaper in the capture view in New Twos. I’m using a similar flow for Android and now for the New Web. You can see I’m using a very simple language and letting it do its thing.”
Parker said he doesn’t have any special prompts that he uses over and over, but he did offer a clever trick: Have Claude create his own documentation for features and larger architecture, and then share that documentation back with the tool when it’s time to work on bugs or new features. Saves a lot of “let me go read all these files” time, and keeps everything more organized.
I also asked Parker if he had any tips for the new duo, and he gave me the advice he always gives me: “My advice will probably never change. Write things down. We’re designed so that anything gets picked up quickly, so that’s what we’re working on improving. I still use lists, bookmarks, search, and chat for reminders heavily, but those are only useful if you’re writing things down.” Friends, he is not wrong.
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.
“John Siracusa App Hyperspace on the Mac App Store — which is great for saving space on your Mac (but doesn’t actually delete any files by using APFS).” – Quack
“I’ve got an awesome/cool e-ink color photo frame: the Vidabay Snap. No wires and no battery. Transfer exactly one (1) photo via NFC. It only works on iOS (for now?), and I have to move a white image to clear it completely before changing the image, which is very inconvenient. But it’s great and makes me happy. I want six of them.” – Daniel
“I’m playing The crimson desertan amazing open-world RPG with characters that have no personality and a main plot without hackneyed quest delivery. But they’re cool and huge, the combat is fun, and they let you pick grasshoppers out of the field. It really feels like a next-gen Bethesda RPG, albeit with writing and a bowl of stale crackers. – Jordan
“One of my favorite YouTube channels that I come back to again and again is Ryan’s modifications. takes Star Trek Error reels, mainly from TNGand re-edit them again in episodes, usually with appropriate music and sound effects. The results are so funny I would love to watch an entire episode that way. – Nicholas
“We just watched this unexpected documentary about extreme bird watching Listeners Which deserves more attention.” – Mal
“Indie game works. An excellent new book from ROM about the greatest indie games of the 21st century. -Andy
“I was recently browsing Google and Cloud, searching ‘how to use an old phone as a media server’, and Reddit suggested I try Impey. It’s a little slow — I should probably connect ethernet to my TV — but it’s kind of cool! — Aftab
“I’m a big fan of audiobooks, and I thought these recommendations might be helpful. Satan’s cycle The Peter V. Brett series is an epic world of magic, demons, and fantasy. A dark and wonderful cultural delight! also, Stormlight Archive Brandon Sanderson series – an example of large-scale fantasy. Warning of worlds, gods and evil. What’s not to like!” – Brian
“I gave recently Roaming history Trying to plan a summer road trip for my family. He made it easy to plan this with my husband. It also saved us from accidentally having a 12-hour driving day. This is a great tool!” — Naomi
Guinness Book of World Records It’s my new favorite thing on TikTok. I don’t know how I didn’t find it until this week, but it’s perfect: just an endless compendium of amazing accomplishments, whatever they are Clapping a billion times a minute, Driving a truck through an impossible small openingor just Being a very big snake. Why do most of these records, or even things people try? I don’t know! But this whole concept is perfectly suited for endlessly scrolling short videos, and I animated that account this week. Zero regrets.
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