Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer<\/em> No. 44, your guide to the best and Verge<\/em>-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer<\/em> homepage<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, I\u2019ve been writing about why I love the Boox Palma<\/strong><\/a>, reading about hot dog contests<\/strong><\/a> and the history of Markdown<\/strong><\/a> and the future of streaming<\/strong><\/a>, watching Shoresy<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and Federer<\/strong><\/em><\/a> and a lot of soccer (it\u2019s been a very sports-y week), mourning the end of the Longform <\/em>podcast<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong><\/em>developing a strange obsession with salt water taffy<\/strong><\/a>, retesting the Apple Vision Pro, and trying every method I can find for making good iced coffee at home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also have for you a couple of great new Bluetooth speakers, the new season of Hulu\u2019s best show, an app for turning everything into audio, and much more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Also, quick housekeeping news: no Installer<\/em> next week. It\u2019s a holiday here in the US (and also my birthday), so I\u2019ll be outside grilling things and getting sunburned. But keep sending recommendations, and we\u2019ll be back with a big one right after.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (As always, the best part of Installer<\/em> is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com<\/a>. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer<\/em>, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I think <\/em>the first Sara Dietschy<\/strong><\/a> video I ever saw was the one where she perfectly explained <\/strong>How To Casey Neistat a Vlog<\/strong><\/a>. (That title, by the way, is like a perfect 2016 time capsule, and I still miss that era of YouTube.) Since then, she\u2019s become one of my favorite creators, talking about everything from cameras to creativity to cars to just\u2026 life. And more recently, as a new parent myself, it\u2019s been really cool to watch her go through so much of the same stuff as is happening in my house.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I asked Sara to share her homescreen with us, curious to see how she was balancing life stuff with creator stuff. Both are really demanding, and we\u2019ve all only got one homescreen, you know? Turns out, there\u2019s a bit of both in there \u2014 but mostly life stuff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s Sara\u2019s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The phone: <\/strong>iPhone 15 Pro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The wallpaper: <\/strong>My wallpaper is always a rotation of cute baby pics. She is my entire life right now. I mean, look at her\u2026 right? I love widgets so I always have stonks I\u2019m watching and the weather front and center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The apps: <\/strong>Phone, Clock, Settings, Camera, Photos, Drive, Amazon, Blackmagic Camera, YouTube, Tesla, DoorDash, Apple Notes, Google Authenticator, Vivint, WhatsApp, Nanit, Messages, Hatch Baby, Safari, Gmail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n My homescreen is reserved for the apps I use multiple times every single day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The to-do widget is from the Things app \u2014 where all of my to-dos go to die \ud83d\ude42 But at least they\u2019re super organized.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also asked Sara to share a few things she\u2019s into right now. Here\u2019s what she sent back:<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s what the <\/em>Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you\u2019re into right now as well! Email <\/em>installer@theverge.com<\/em><\/a> or message me on Signal \u2014\u00a0@davidpierce.11 \u2014 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we\u2019ll feature some of our favorites here every week. And for more great recommendations than I could fit here, check out the replies to <\/em>this post on Threads<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSeeing chess in Installer<\/em> made me think of another great chess game! Really Bad Chess<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Zach Gage is apparently really good for my brain. It\u2019s available on iOS and Android with an in-app purchase, and it\u2019s free if you pay for Apple Arcade!\u201d \u2013 Harvey<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m sad that more people don\u2019t know about \u201c17776<\/strong><\/a>\u201d and \u201c20020<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d stories from the far future about football and sapient satellites.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Lego<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI just finished Temptation of the Force<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Tessa Gratton. It\u2019s the latest novel in the Star Wars: The High Republic<\/em> storyline, and these continue to be some of my favorite books of the last 10 years, definitely in the Star Wars universe. They\u2019re set a few hundred years before the movies, and I\u2019d recommend them to any fan.\u201d \u2013 Justin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cStarting to cure a pancetta and capicola using Umai Dry vacuum bags<\/strong><\/a>. I don\u2019t have a great place to cure and dry meats in our city home, so it\u2019s 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\u2019s Day!\u201d \u2013 Timothy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnil Dash wrote up two posts on what a board of directors does<\/strong><\/a>, and it\u2019s fascinating! Required reading if you\u2019re into how corporate governance works.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Richard<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been getting into sideloading. It\u2019s amazing what you can get with a developer ID and the cracked iPhone apps that are out there.\u201d \u2013 Dawit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI cannot stop playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor<\/strong><\/em><\/a> on PC. In this roguelike, you\u2019re a dwarf mining precious minerals and battling hordes of bugs on an alien planet. It\u2019s ridiculously fun, easy to pick up, and the weapon and skill systems are \u200bthoroughly satisfying to navigate.\u201d \u2013 Abhimanyu<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cA while back, I went through the same journey you seem to be on: \u2018I want a Light Phone<\/strong><\/a>, but\u2026 what if I just turned my iPhone into a Light Phone?\u2019 The option I like most is building my own with Widgy Widgets<\/strong><\/a>. It\u2019s a very powerful app that allows you to build your own widgets. It\u2019s not intuitive and it has way more power than I\u2019d ever need, but it\u2019s amazing to build your own Light Phone.\u201d \u2013\u00a0Tom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m about halfway through Adrian Tchaikovsky\u2019s new sci-fi book, Service Model<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, and it\u2019s a great story about AI and our reliance on technology. Can\u2019t put it down!\u201d \u2013 Sighjinks<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Before we go to bed, my wife and I sit down almost every night to watch something together. Sometimes we talk through the whole thing, sometimes we watch the show, sometimes we sit and stare at our phones the whole time. It\u2019s nice all three ways! I suspect a lot of people have their wind-down shows, but allow me to tell you about ours: The Great Food Truck Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a> on Food Network. (Well, now Max, but you know what I mean.) It\u2019s like a cooking show meets The Amazing Race<\/em>, there are 16 seasons \u2014 and season 17 starts this weekend! \u2014\u00a0and it\u2019s all silly and fantastic. My wife and I have developed several hundred food truck ideas while watching the show, too, which is also very fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019re in need of a new show to watch forever without working your brain too hard, check out the food trucks. (And if you have other shows like this I should watch, please let me know. We\u2019re caught up on food trucks, and it\u2019s a problem.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Drop<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Screen share<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Crowdsourced<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
Signing off<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n