Hello, friends! I’m welcome Installer No. 119, your guide to the best and the edge– The most things in the world. (Welcome if you’re new here, hope your agents are ok, and you can also read all the old editions Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about it. The future of Pixar And Flight MH370 And Sports gambling And YouTube faceFinally dig Dungeon Crawler Carl Hopefully after you’ve recommended it several times Chicken Just like its premiere, it keeps getting better, buy one MacBook Nine I certainly didn’t need to, redesigning mine Obsidian setup for Descriptions of James Bedfordchecking. Fairbuds XL Headphones, and took off all my winter clothes — only to pull them out again because it started snowing. good times
I also have a new game for you to add to your daily list, an adorable new Sonos speaker, a huge new book about Apple’s first half century, a fun new way to YouTube, and more. Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of Installer Have your thoughts and suggestions. What are you watching/reading/listening/playing this week on spring break? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy. Installerforward it and ask them to subscribe here.)
- Password. A new game from Josh Wardle, creator of Wordleit is based on the concept of a secret crossword puzzle. The concept is quite difficult to explain. Wordlebut tickles my word game-loving mind in a similarly delightful way.
- Sonos Play. Sonos’ first new speaker in more than a year is pretty expensive — $299 is just too much for a wireless speaker — but otherwise it sounds ideal? Big and powerful enough to be a good living room speaker, portable enough to actually throw in a bag or take to the backyard. And it does simple 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 the company’s evolution over the decades. I’ve been paying attention to Apple for a long time, and I learned a ton from this book.
- Perplexity Personal Computer. There are many apps coming out now that I would classify as “openclaw, but simpler and less dangerous”. People seem to like this from Perplexity — it still requires a dedicated device and comes with some risks, but it’s a lot easier to get up and running.
- “Is there a brand new city in California?” I had forgotten about California forever, the tech-led proposal to build an entirely new city out of San Francisco! This is a great episode Volt The podcast is digging into how the city will work. I look forward to part two.
- The Bigfoot Emoji. The Unicode 17.0 standard is starting to roll out to devices — it’s currently in a bunch of Apple betas — and it includes a bunch of cool new emoji! But I think we, right now, need to decide on a culturally useful reason to use the Bigfoot emoji all the time. Like, does it mean “rude”? Or “I don’t believe that’s true”? anything else? I need your thoughts. We need to do that.
- Channel Surfer. This web app puts YouTube into an old-school grid of TV channels, so you can flip between videos just like scrolling through your hotel room TV. But you can also import your own subscriptions, which actually makes it one of the best YouTube experiences I’ve ever encountered.
- My WordPress. I almost don’t know what to make of this: you can now install a native version of WordPress that’s limited to your browser, requires zero setup, and that kind of work. It’s WordPress as a native operating system, I think? I’m a little confused by this, but fascinated by the rise in native browser apps.
Over the past few months, I’ve been hearing from many of you that you want to see how other people are using AI. Their tools, their setups, the things they’re building, everything. What else? Installer-y idea! So in this space, not every week but certainly from time to time, we’ll replace home screen sharing with AI sharing.
First of all: Brian Lowenwho works as a designer at Notion and is also an accomplished developer and designer. (If you checked out Shivrithe bookmarking app I mentioned here a few weeks ago, you’re already familiar with his work.) Brian and I jumped on a call the other day to talk about his setup and how he does it all. Here’s a screenshot he sent me, while he was AI-ing from mobile:
The first thing Brian told me was a prompt he likes, which he attributes to Notion cofounder Simon Last: “Step back and think really hard. How can we make it easy and foolproof while still achieving our goals?” He says he uses this prompt 20 times a day with AI coding agents. I love it.
With the caveat that his setup changes all the time, here are some of the apps Brian says he loves for AI work right now:
- Claude. He uses the Claude Code app for many things, but also communicates with Claude in the Mac’s Terminal. Cursori Zand elsewhere.
- Claude Henner. Brian convinced me that building skills is worth your time, especially if you want your AI agents to do the same thing over and over again. GitHub is also great. Other people’s skillsif you want to start there.
- Monologue. (That’s the keyboard you see in the screenshot.) A voice dictation app with a smart iOS keyboard for cross-app use, Brian says he uses Monologue a lot just for braindump tasks and projects and seeing what the system generates. “My first instinct is to add things to my to-do list,” he says, “and I’m rewiring my brain just to do exploration first.”
- conductor. Brian says this is the app that more people should get into – a way to configure and manage a group of AI agents working in parallel. Will you end up overdoing it and creating a bunch of unnecessary stuff? Yes Brian did too. But learning how to multitask with AI agents is a huge win, he says.
Right now, Brian told me, he’s spending most of his side project time doing backend coding and frontend work with AI himself. (He points out that the cloud code in particular has a very distinctive, purple-gradient-y style, and says that training the bot in the right direction is more difficult than just doing it yourself.) But like many others I’ve talked to, he says he’s constantly amazed at how well AI coding tools are improving. In three months, his entire setup could be different again.
what is here Installer Community is in this week. I want to know what you are into right now! E-mail 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 each week. For more great recommendations, check out the answers This post on Threads And This post on Bluesky.
“I’m finally starting to understand. Android Studio. Maybe I have too many options and tools (Cloud, Gemini, Mance, Firebase Studio, Android Studio, Ripplet, whatever is in my inbox). But I’m getting there. Trying to create a notes/to-do app where notes with tasks appear on my to-do side with a link to the note taking advantage of the Gemini Nano on my phone with syncing with my google calendar and tasks. The Podcast App Next. – Age
“My current obsession is. Cosmic Princess Kaguyawhich is playing in theaters across Japan even though it’s been on Netflix for a month. There’s nothing like sitting in a crowded room full of fans watching a great movie. – Bea
“Just found out All creatures great and small. It is about a small, rural veterinary practice in 1930s Britain. It is endlessly wholesome, wonderfully vibrant and unapologetically British. I’m streaming it on PBS.” – Zach
“Thinking about this article by Maggie Appleton, ‘Home-baked software and barefoot developers,’ Too recently!” – Jacob
“I have a book I think you might like: reward. This book does an excellent job of covering oil from the beginning to the present, along with presenting the economic background of oil and its time, the history of Western companies versus national ownership and production, and why our modern society revolves around energy-intensive renewable fuels. – Christopher
“I am studying. Power Broker And listening 99% invisible Companion Podcast With Roman Mars and the Elite Clan. – craigkocur
“Have you tried? Rematch? It was released about a year ago, and it’s still my favorite soccer game. – Elder
“For someone looking for MP3 taggers for all music they’re ripping to CDs, I’d recommend: Music Brains Picard or (if you enjoy the command line) Beetroot” – Daryl
“I can’t say enough good things about it The fog AI as a companion to health and wellness. It is an AI chatbot but it only focuses on health. It is very minimal and clean. It has its own stats built in but is also compatible with Apple Health and other health services. It’s cheaper than the Gemini subscription and has an active and responsive developer! – Justin
I don’t know if it’s just my particular YouTube algorithm, but it looks like a paper notebook is having a moment. The ones I follow are all productive nerds. Sudden recommendation Their Preferred analog systemand Sharing methods In which Writing longhand Made them feel better And do more.
I like the idea, but I have two problems: I have bad handwriting. Trash canAnd I don’t know which notebook to buy. I assume that means I need to buy a bunch of pens and notebooks, because gear will solve those problems, right? Right?! Anyway, I need recommendations. If you’ve gone analog, or have always been that way, I’d love to hear your gear of choice. Someday, maybe, I’ll even be able to read my own writing.
