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Hello friends! Welcome in Installer #37, your guide to the best and Verge– the best thing in the world. (If you’re new here, you’re welcome, send me links, and you can also read all the old issues on Installer Homepage.)

This week I am writing about iPads and LinkedIn gamesreading about auto shows and typewriters and treasure huntersi look They’re all in LA and sugar, looking for reasons to buy Yeti’s New French Press although I definitely don’t need more coffee equipment following pretty much everyone Jerry Saltz’s favorite Instagram accounts, testing Capacities and Heptabase for all my note taking needs and Plinky for all my link saving and lots of play Blind driving.

I’ve also got a totally awesome new iPad for you, a nifty new smart home hub, a Twitter documentary to watch this weekend, a sci-fi show to check out, a cheap streaming box and more. Let’s do this.

(As always, the best part of Installer are your ideas and advice. What are you reading/watching/cooking/playing/building right now? What should everyone else be doing too? Email me at installer@theverge.com or find me on Signal at @davidpierce.11. And if you know someone else who might be delighted installer, and tell them to subscribe here.)

• The new iPad Pro. The new Pro is the most impressive piece of hardware I’ve seen in a while. It’s so thin and light, and that OLED screen… lovely. It’s crazy expensive, and the iPad’s big problem continues to be its software, but that’s how you build a tablet, folks.
• Animal well. Our friends in Polygon called this “one of the most inventive games of the last decade”, which is obviously high praise! By all accounts, it is unusual, surprising, sometimes disappointing, very clever and incredibly engaging. Even the trailer is unlike anything I’ve seen before. (I have a lot recommendations for this week’s – thanks to everyone who submitted it!)
• Final Cut Camera. It was only briefly mentioned at Apple’s event this week, but it’s a huge deal! It is a premium, pro-level camera app for iPhone and iPad that gives you plenty of manual control and editing features. This is exactly what many creators asked for. No word yet on exactly when it will be available, but I’m excited.
• Aqara Hub M3. The only way to manage your smart home is to make sure your devices can support as many assistants, protocols and platforms as possible. This seems like the way to do it: it’s a hardware-ready device that can handle just about any smart home gear you throw at it.
• “The Battle of the Clipboard Managers.” I don’t think I’ve ever linked to a reddit thread here, but check this one out: it’s a long discussion about why the clipboard manager is a useful tool, plus a bunch of good options to choose from. (I agree with all the people who love Raycast, but there are a lot of choices and ideas here.)
• Proton passage. My #1 constant tech tip is that everyone needs a password manager. I’m a long-timer 1 Password fan, but Proton’s app is starting to look enticing – this week it got a new security threat monitoring tool, in addition to all the smart email hiding and sharing features it already has.
• Onn 4K Pro. Basically all streaming boxes are full of ads, slow and bad. This Google TV box from Walmart is also cheap, comes with voice control and support for all the specs you want, and works as a smart speaker. I also like the custom button.
• Dark matter. I’ve mostly loved all the Blake Crouch sci-fi books I’ve read, so I have high hopes for this Apple TV Plus series about life in a parallel universe. Apple TV Plus, by the way? Really good at all science fiction.
• The Wordle archive. More than 1000 days of Wordleall ready to play and replay (because, let’s be honest, who remembers Wordle from three weeks ago?). I don’t have access to the archive yet, but you better believe I’ll be playing it all the way as soon as it’s out.
• Black Twitter: A History of the People. Based on really fun With cable series, it’s an in-depth three-part Hulu doc ​​about the ways Black Twitter took over social media and a tour of the Internet’s experience of some of the biggest events of the last decade.

Kylie Robison, On the edge‘c new senior AI reporter, tweeted a video of his old iPhone back in the day it was like a perfect time capsule on a device. She had roughly 90,000 games, including a bunch I’m 100 percent sure were scams, and that iPod logo on her dock made me feel a lot. They were good days.

I messaged Kylie on Slack approximately eight minutes after she got up Verge employee, hoping I can get her to share her current home screen—and what she did for fun before she joined us.

Unfortunately, she says she tamed the chaos on her home screen before she started, because something something professional or whatever. And now she swears she can’t even find a screenshot of her old home screen! OK, KYLIE. Anyway, here’s Kylie’s new functional home screen, plus some info on the apps she’s using and why.

The phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max.

The wallpaper: Black screen because I think it’s too noisy otherwise. (However, my lock screen is about 20 rotating photos.)

Applications: Apple Maps, Notes, Spotify, Messages, FaceTime, Safari, Phone.

I need a calendar and weather apps right in front of me when I unlock my phone because I forget. I use Spotify for all things music and podcasts.

Work is life, so I also have all these apps front and center (Signal, Google Drive, Okta).

Right before I started, I reorganized my phone screen because 1) I had time and 2) I knew I’d have to show it to David. Now all applications are sorted into folders, but before they were completely free because I use the search bar to find applications; I rarely scroll. So just imagine about 25 random apps filling up all the pages: Pegasus for some international flight I booked, random recipe for stuffed peppers, what have you.

I also asked Kylie to share a few things she’s excited about right now. Here’s what she shared:

• Stardew Valley took over my life during my work break.
• I actually started 3 Body problem because of an old Installer. Besides, I loved I’m falling out and need more episodes.
• My serious guilty pleasure is Love Island Great Britainand i watched the last season during my vacation.

here’s what Installer community is in this week. I also want to know what you’re up to right now! Email installer@theverge.com or hit me up on Signal — I’m @davidpierce.11 ​​— with your recommendations on anything and we’ll feature some of our favorites each week. And if you want even more recommendations, check out the answers to this post in threads.

“I’ve always found Spotify’s recommendation algorithm and music channels terrible; ugh, too much fuss and tweaking required when all i want is to hit play and get a good variety of music i’ll like. So I finally gave up and tried Pandora again. Its recommendation/station algorithm is so much better than Spotify’s (at least to me) that it’s shocking how it seems to have faded into cultural anonymity. I can’t speak for others, but if anyone out there is similarly frustrated with Spotify playlists, I highly recommend the Pandora option.” – Will

“Everything that comes out of Netflix is ​​a joke fest it was 10/10.” – Mike

“Mantella mod for Skyrim (and Negative impact 4). Not so much a single mod, but a mod plus a collection of apps that give (basically) every NPC their own life and stories. It’s like suddenly being allowed to participate in the fun and games with Woody and Buzz instead of them having to say the words when you pull the string.” – Jonathan

“The Snipd podcast app (whose main selling point is AI transcription of podcasts and the ability to easily capture, manage and export text snippets from podcasts) has a new feature that shows you a name, bio and photo for podcast guests and lets you find more podcasts with the same guest or even follow specific guests. Very cool!” – Andy

“I recently bought a new Kindle and I’m trying to figure out how to get news about it! My current plan is to use Anyway as my bookmarks app that will sync with this great community tool that converts those bookmarks into Kindle friendly website.” – David

“Turtles all the way! A great portrayal of OCD.” – Saad

“With all the talk around Delta for iOS, I recently got mine and am currently in love with my Miyoo Mini Plus. It is customized and perfectly sized even in my advanced years with no love for Fortnite, PUBGor any of the countless online related games, it’s great to go back and play some of those ‘legally obtained’ games I played in my childhood.” – Benjamin

“Rusty’s retirement is a great mostly idle farm simulator that sits on the bottom or side of your monitor for both Mac and Windows. Rusty just goes and does small tasks of his own volition while you work or do other things. It rocks. Watch him go!” – Brendan

“Last week Nicholas talked about YACReader and wanted another great e-comic reader app for DRM-free files. After much searching I stopped Panels for iPad. Apple’s own great user interface, thoughtful features and decent performance. The free version can handle a local library, but to unlock its full potential, the Pro version (sub or lifetime) supports iCloud, so you can store all your comics in iCloud Drive, manage files via Mac, and download only that , which you want to read right now — great for lower-end iPads with less storage.” – Diogo

I spent so much time over the years he has tried to understand and explain the basics of the camera to people. There are a billion metaphors for ISO, shutter speed, and aperture, and they all fall short. That’s probably why many of the types of photographers I know get along so well depth of field simulator over the past few days, allowing you to play with aperture, focal length, sensor size and more to see how different settings change the way you take pictures. It’s a really smart and easy way to see how everything works — and find out what’s possible when you really get to grips with your camera. I suspect I’ll be sharing this link often and learning a lot from it too.