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Hello friends! Welcome in Installer #44, your guide to the best and Verge– the best thing in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so excited you found us, and you can also read all the back issues on Installer Homepage.)

This week I am writing about why I love Boox Palmareading about hot dog contests and the history of Markdown and the future of streamingi look Shoresy and Federer and lots of football (it was a very sporting week) mourning the end of Long form podcast, developing a strange obsession with toffee with salt waterretesting the Apple Vision Pro and trying every method I can find to make good iced coffee at home.

I also have some great new bluetooth speakers for you, the new season of Hulu’s best show, an app to turn everything into audio, and more.

Also, quick housekeeping news: no Installer next week. It’s a holiday here in the US (and also my birthday), so I’ll be outside baking things and getting sunburnt. But keep sending referrals and we’ll be right back with a big one.

(As always, the best part of Installer are your ideas and advice. What do you want to learn more about? What cool tricks do you know that everyone else should know? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy it Installerforward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)

• UE Wonderboom 4. A few weeks ago I said that the best speaker advice I could give you was to buy a UE Wonderboom. I stand by that, especially now that there’s a new one that charges with USB-C! The new Everboomwith a built-in carabiner and extra sound, it’s very tempting, but you can’t beat it for $100.
• The Beats pill. More new speakers! I have a soft spot for a nice portable sound system and the new pill looks pretty cool. Chris Welch likes how it sounds, and I like that it does wired audio and charges other gadgets via the USB-C port. Beats performed well here, though I’m still Wonderboomin.
• Verge clothing. I really try not to lie about Verge there’s too much going on here, but I’m genuinely excited about the new stuff we’re working on. I especially like the hood and cup (finally the right size). Redecorating our store was a fun project and I hope you like things!
• “The Death of the Follower and the Future of Creativity on the Web.” I always enjoy listening to Jack Conte talk about the Internet, and I happened to stumble upon this talk at SXSW where he basically explains how “following” and “subscribing” have changed the world—and how we need to change it again.
• ElevenLabs reader. ElevenLabs does AI voices better than any product I’ve ever seen, and I’ve built this app for the iPhone (and Android, apparently soon) in a really smart way. You simply share any article, book or PDF in the app, choose a voice and it will read it out loud.
• Blackmagic Camera for Android. There’s a really annoying lack of great third-party camera apps for Android, but this one is good, with plenty of manual controls and instant feedback. It’s only on a few phones for now, but I’ll take what I can.
• Idea sites. It’s a small but very clever thing: create a Notion page and publish it on the web with one click. If you want, like a one-page personal website or a quick and easy event page. It’s much easier than almost anything else out there.
• The bear season 3. I agree with everyone who is annoyed that Hulu dropped this season all at once instead of week by week — download it, give us time to obsess over it! That said, I will be watching every second of it this weekend. And then I rewatch all three seasons as soon as I’m done.
• Figma slides. Figma got some really big updates across the board this week: a redesign, a bunch of AI stuff, and more. But Slides is especially cool. It’s a mix of a design tool and a presentation tool, and it looks a lot more fun to play with than PowerPoint.

I i think the first Sarah Ditchie the video i ever watched was the one where she explained perfectly How to vlog Casey Neista. (This title, by the way, is like a perfect time capsule of 2016, and I still miss that era of YouTube.) Since then, she’s become one of my favorite creators, talking about everything from cameras to creativity to cars and just… life. And recently, as a new parent, it’s been really cool to watch her go through so many of the same things that happen in my house.

I asked Sarah to share her home screen with us, curious to see how she balances life and creative things. Both are really demanding and we all only have one home screen, you know? Turns out there’s a little bit of both – but mostly life stuff.

Here’s Sarah’s home screen plus some info on the apps she uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro.

The wallpaper: My wallpaper is always a rotation of cute baby pictures. She is my whole life right now. I mean, look at her…right? I love gadgets, so I always have the stonks I’m looking at and the weather front and center.

Applications: Phone, Clock, Settings, Camera, Photos, Drive, Amazon, Blackmagic Camera, YouTube, Tesla, DoorDash, Apple Notes, Google Authenticator, Vivint, WhatsApp, Nanit, Messages, Hatch Baby, Safari, Gmail.

My home screen is reserved for the apps I use multiple times each day.

The task widget is from the Things app — where all my tasks go to die 🙂 But at least they’re super organized.

I also asked Sarah to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:

• Blackmagic Camera. AWESOME camera app that lets you take Apple Log photos with a reasonable file size. (The photo input in Apple’s camera will let you massive ProRes HQ files.)
• Apple notes. I recently downsized my team and was obsessed with the speed and simplicity of Notes instead of Notion, which I used religiously. Notion is now only used for projects I’m working on that require other people.
• Nanite. The best baby monitor ever. The feature packed app makes the expensive hardware worth it. PiP works perfectly and you can monitor the sound of the baby monitor in the background while listening to a podcast or music.
• I am so into 3D printing right now. This led me to many “maker” YouTube channels. I’m binge eating right now Adam Savage is tested channel.

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

“Seeing chess in Installer made me think of another great chess game! Really bad chess by Zach Gage is apparently really good for my brain. It’s available on iOS and Android with an in-app purchase, and it’s free if you pay for Apple Arcade!” – Harvey

“I’m sorry more people don’t know about”17776” and “20020,” stories from the far future about soccer and smart satellites.” – Lego

“I just finished The Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton. This is the latest novel in the Star Wars: The High Republic storyline and these continue to be some of my favorite books of the last 10 years, definitely in the Star Wars universe. It takes place several hundred years before the movies and I would recommend them to any fan.” – Justin

“I begin to treat panchetta and capicola with the help of Umai Dry vacuum bags. I don’t have a great place to dry and dry meat in our townhouse, so it’s nice to be able to do it in the fridge. Bonus: I get to use the new vacuum sealer my family got me for Father’s Day!” – Timothy

“Anil Dash wrote two posts what does the board of directors do, and it’s adorable! A must read if you are interested in how corporate governance works.” – Richard

“I started charging from the side. It’s amazing what you can get with a developer ID and the cracked iPhone apps that are out there.” – David

“I can’t stop playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor on a computer. In this roguelike, you are a dwarf mining precious minerals and fighting hordes of bugs on an alien planet. It’s ridiculously fun, easy to pick up, and the weapons and skill systems are completely satisfying to navigate. – Abhimanyu

“A while ago I went through the same journey that you seem to be on: ‘I want Lightweight phonebut… what if I just turned my iPhone into a lightweight phone?” The option I like best is to build my own Widgy Widgets. This is a very powerful application that allows you to create your own widgets. It’s not intuitive and has way more power than I’d ever need, but it’s amazing to build your own Light Phone.” – Tom

“I’ve cut Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new sci-fi book in half, Service model, and it’s a great story about AI and our dependence on technology. I can’t put it down!” – Sighs

Before we go to bed, almost every night my wife and I sit down to watch something together. Sometimes we talk about everything, sometimes we watch the show, sometimes we sit and look at our phones the whole time. It’s good in all three ways! I suspect a lot of people have their night shows, but let me tell you about ours: The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network. (Well, now Max, but you know what I mean.) It’s like dating on a cooking show The incredible race, has 16 seasons — and season 17 starts this weekend! — and it’s all silly and fantastic. My wife and I also came up with several hundred food truck ideas while watching the show, which is also a lot of fun.

If you need a new show to watch forever without taxing your brain too much, check out food trucks. (And if you have any other shows like this that I should watch, please let me know. We’re stuck with food trucks, and that’s a problem.)

Happy holiday to all who celebrate. See you in two weeks!