Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 97, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you’re having a good iPhone / back to school / it’s-finally-not-hot-anymore week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
It’s so good to be back! Huge, huge thanks to Jay Peters for doing such a fabulous job here over the last couple of months, and huge thanks to all of you as always for having such good contributions and ideas. Jay will still be around these parts from time to time, too, so don’t worry, your esoteric gaming recommendations aren’t going anywhere.
I was going to do a whole “all the cool stuff I caught up on this summer” thing, but then it turned out I had a newborn baby, so all I had brainpower for was Entourage and Veep episodes on repeat. But this week, I’ve been reading about AI doctors and face-lift culture and Glen Powell and Lofi Girl, watching The Paper (which I really liked as soon as I stopped wanting it to be The Office), playing the latest season of NFL Retro Bowl, marveling at the engineering inside AirPods, being continually impressed with Notion AI, continuing to throw my life’s notes and nonsense into Craft, and suddenly getting ready to move houses. Pray for my sanity.
I also have for you the best things that Apple launched this week, a new way to watch everyone’s favorite game show, a Stephen King movie worth seeing, and much more. We’re so back, y’all. Let’s do this.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / downloading / getting out for the fall this week? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The iPhone 17. The Air looks great, the Pro has lots of impressive features, but for my money, the base iPhone 17 is the one to get this year. Screen upgrade, more durable, camera improvements, more storage, nice price. Other than the zoom camera, there’s not really much of a reason for people to go Pro. Well, except for the orange. I do love the orange. Hmm.
- The AirPods Pro 3. The new Apple thing that I’m most excited about is actually the $250 headphones with better noise cancellation, better battery, more durability, and some useful health features. A slam-dunk upgrade to one of Apple’s best products.
- Beats iPhone 17 Pro Kickstand Case with MagSafe and Camera Control. Clunky name, clever product: an iPhone case with a lanyard that flips around and becomes a kickstand. I barely understand how this even works, but I love a way to prop my phone up on the counter.
- Jeopardy! Two things I’ve recently learned about Jeopardy: it is streaming new episodes as of this week, on both Peacock and Hulu, and it is absolutely A+ background television. The always-on channel is now a staple in my house.
- The Nikon ZR. This video-centric new camera seems to be roughly what you’d expect a year and change after Nikon acquired RED: a great capture system with a massive amount of post-production flexibility. It’s not on sale until next month, though, so start putting aside the $2,200 now.
- The Long Walk. Another day, another Stephen King movie. But evidently a pretty good one! It sounds like a pretty heavy evening at the theater, but with a little Hunger Games, a little Squid Game, and a bunch of good performances, I suspect it’ll be worth the trip.
- Spotify Lossless. Only took most of a decade! And at no extra cost. I think it’s great that there’s a higher-end streaming option, even though it’s not as hi-fi as some other streaming services, and I don’t think my laptop speakers are going to project much difference anyway.
- Borderlands 4. This might be a stupid thing to say, but I love a game that doesn’t try to be, like, thoughtful and smart and about something. Borderlands 4 makes no bones about what it is: it’s all plot, all action, no filler, no thinking involved. That’s exactly what I wanted it to be.
- RabbitOS 2. I never ever thought that I’d mention Rabbit here again. And yet the new version of this device’s software is… sort of neat? It’s still basically a phone app dressed up in an orange box, but the touch-first interface is way better, the built-in AI agent is more fun to play with, and I’ve actually caught myself using the R1 on purpose again.
You could probably ascribe a large part of my personality to a specific era of the website Lifehacker. Back in the day, it was this breezy, fun, curious, and self-aware blog about how to use technology and explore the internet and just be a person in the future. And for a long time, it was all coming out of the brain of Gina Trapani, one of the internet’s great bloggers.
Gina’s been up to lots of stuff in recent years, but now she’s blogging again! Her site, Note to Self, was an instant subscribe for me — and if you like Installer, then I suspect you’ll like it, too. When I saw the site launch, I reached out to Gina to see how a true lifehacker does a homescreen in 2025.
Here’s Gina’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:
The phone: Right now, I’ve got a four-year-old iPhone 13 Pro, which means I’m looking forward to upgrading this year. Once you get three to four years of mileage out of your phone, when you do finally trade up, the latest model feels absolutely heavenly, and I appreciate it more.
The wallpaper: This is Apple’s 2025 Pride wallpaper, which I grabbed in June and haven’t updated since. I like what Apple did with the Pride designs this year — they managed to make something fresh but recognizable.
The apps: Camera, Settings.
People who know me from Lifehacker will expect me to have a tricked-out setup with all the hot new apps, and I’m here to disappoint. I’ve been in touch-grass mode for a while; I want my preteen to see more of me than the top of my head while I look down at my phone. So my homescreen is minimal and utilitarian.
I’ve turned off almost all those horrendous red badges; I feel conflicted about using AI instead of my brain. I keep a small number of my most frequently used apps on my homescreen, and almost all of them are grouped into purpose-related folders, like Communication, Health & Fitness, Travel. That adds another tap to get to them, but the extra step helps me be intentional about what I set out to do. For everything else, I pull down the search bar to find it.
I’m a big note-taker, and I use Obsidian, so I have an iOS shortcut called “Note.” It’s a direct link to an Obsidian note called “Inbox,” where I capture stuff to process later.
In Health & Fitness, I’ve got a triathlon training app I vibe-coded on Lovable, driven by a personal Google Sheet. All it does is tell me one thing: whether I’m supposed to run, bike, or swim at the gym that day.
As it turns out, I’m nearly five decades old and need a teeth-brushing coach. The Oral-B app paired with my electric toothbrush gamifies things, which works for me. It helps me get pressure and coverage right, and my full two minutes of brushing in because I won’t otherwise.
Superhuman is better than Gmail. Todoist is for deadlines. Citymapper is my favorite way to navigate New York City. Monarch is my where-does-the-money-go app. Checking ebooks out of the library with Libby brings me much joy.
I also asked Gina to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:
- KPop Demon Hunters! My preteen has our whole family deep in it, and I am not mad about it.
- I’ve been reading actual books this year, and I highly recommend: All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (the Apple TV Plus adaptation is on my watchlist, though I hear it’s not as good as the book), The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, and Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.
- My online guilty pleasure is r/LinkedInLunatics.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] 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 this post on Threads, this post on Bluesky, and this post on The Verge.
“I ‘inherited’ my daughter’s Nintendo Switch and got Demon Slayer: The Hinomaki Chronicles on sale for $20. Getting myself hyped up for the movie this weekend.” – Michael
“Stephen Robles on YouTube has created an amazing iOS shortcut that can help protect your iPhone if it’s ever stolen. It sends you the location of your device along with photos from both the front and back cameras. It even plays an audible alert that says, ‘This iPhone is stolen!’ Best of all, you can activate it from any phone, whether Android or iOS.” — Owen
“I just started Frieren and man, the hype is warranted. I’m more of a rom-com, slice of life guy rather than fantasy, but the story is super compelling so far.” — Ryan
“I have been thoroughly enjoying Bill McKibben’s Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. Its thesis — that the astoundingly rapid buildout of solar and wind could provide us a lifeline out of the worst effects of climate change, if we act now — has brought more hope and enthusiasm about the future than I’ve felt in what feels like years.” — Hoto
“Currently checking out the beta of 2XKO, a free 2v2 tag-team fighting game set in the League of Legends universe. Appears to be great for newcomers.” — Daniel
“I’m cautiously enjoying a new feature on the Garmin Forerunner 955. A recent software update ties in my travel plans to the watch, and I get recommendations for time zone adjustments. It gave decent suggestions when I went from the US to Italy, back to the US, then to France all within a week. The gentle reminders of when to stop caffeine were the best.” — Sean
“I binged and loved Long Story Short by the creator(s) of BoJack Horseman.” — Tal
“1001 Albums Generator recommends a new album every day (including weekends if you like) from the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It’s a great way to listen to some of the best-regarded music and expand your listening habits beyond your music recommendation algorithm.” — Richard
“Alien: Earth. Let’s talk about the octopus eye.” — Sheila
Okay, so there is one show I watched this summer that I want to talk about, just for a second. It’s a Netflix show called Building the Band, and it is essentially American Idol meets Love is Blind meets The Circle. The premise makes no sense! It also totally works. I found myself shockingly invested in all these singers and bands, and the whole thing is structured so that none of the 10 episodes ever feel repetitive or draggy. I would watch a thousand seasons of this show — and knowing Netflix, I assume that’s exactly what we’re going to get. And not to brag, but I called the winner with about four episodes to spare.