Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer<\/em> No. 64, your guide to the best and Verge<\/em>-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, welcome, get ready for some weird documentaries, 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 reading about raw milk<\/strong><\/a> and $HAWK<\/strong><\/a> and WhatsApp<\/strong><\/a>, watching A Man on the Inside<\/strong><\/em><\/a> <\/strong><\/em>and the new Ken Burns da Vinci doc<\/strong><\/a>, finally getting caught up on The Great British Bake Off<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (about which I have SO MANY FEELINGS), storing all my loyalty numbers and Airbnb codes in Cheatsheet<\/strong><\/a>, and doing a genuinely upsetting amount of research on pizza stones. \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also have for you a delightful new mobile game, an E Ink tablet worth a look, a gorgeous new to-dos app, and much more. It\u2019s a strangely Netflix-centric week, which is odd for mid-December? But so it goes. Let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (As always, the best part of Installer<\/em> is your ideas and tips. What are you watching \/ reading \/ playing \/ baking \/ listening to \/ soldering this week? 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 Did you subscribe to The Verge<\/em><\/strong><\/a> yet? You don\u2019t have to in order to get Installer<\/em>, but you should anyway! I\u2019m not remotely biased, and I think it\u2019s a pretty good website. And we have big plans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Esther Cohen<\/strong><\/a> is the person making all those plans, and making them real. She\u2019s been working like crazy the last few months as our director of subscriptions, and so I figured now would be a great time to ask her to do more work and share her homescreen with us. How many subscriptions does the subscription director have, you know? Inquiring minds want to know.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s Esther\u2019s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The wallpaper: <\/strong>A picture of my (very big) kids and me from my birthday this year. (It\u2019s also my lockscreen, where I can see their faces.) Apparently, I am a masochist and every time I see that my 11-year-old son is my height it makes me want to cry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The apps:<\/strong> Weather, Settings, Apple Maps, Safari, Slack, The Verge, Apple Notes, Spotify, Phone, Mail, Messages, WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One way to summarize my apps is basic<\/em>. At the top right, I keep all my utility stuff: things I use as I go about my day. (I\u2019m mostly looking up places in NYC and figuring out how to get there \u2014\u00a0don\u2019t @ me, I prefer Apple Maps!)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The bottom left corner is where I spend the most time, mostly on work-related apps like Slack, the Verge<\/em> homepage, and Apple Notes. I\u2019m terrible at unplugging and feel the need to stay updated on work at all times, so having the calendar widget front and center is a lifesaver. I tend to lose track of time when I\u2019m deep into a project, so seeing my upcoming meetings at a glance is super helpful.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Spotify is my most-used \u201cfun\u201d app; it\u2019s what I use for podcasts and music while working, working out, cooking, etc. Oh, and I recently moved social media apps off my home screen \u2014 it\u2019s been a game-changer for my stress and focus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also asked Esther 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. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to <\/em>this post on Threads<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>this post on Bluesky<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to learn 3D modeling because I just got a Bambu A1<\/strong><\/a>.\u201c \u2014\u00a0Erwin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy favorite music-to-work-by site is myNoise<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. I particularly like \u2018Medieval Library\u2019 and \u2018Medieval Village\u2019 (with turned-down blacksmith\u2019s clang). It\u2019s free to use, but if you toss the fascinating French sound engineer obsessive Stephane a few bucks you get lifetime access to a bunch more sounds as well as some nice tools.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Molly<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cCaves of Qud<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is an esoteric masterpiece of a game, I\u2019m on my tenth character, I\u2019ve barely seen a fraction of the world, but I\u2019m hooked\u201d \u2014 Jack<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI have finished reading Deep Work<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Cal Newport. It provided useful insights about how to take time out of your busy schedule to focus on deep work. It also provided how to minimise distractions and cut down shallow work.\u201d \u2014 Ankur<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI got really really enamored by the Pixel 9 Pro Fold<\/strong><\/a>. I don\u2019t know why. The thickness of it, just sitting next to a 15 Pro Max and then unfolding it to that screen inside\u2026 it\u2019s something.\u201d \u2014 Abhi<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe game Mouthwashing<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is getting a lot of attention right now, but I am just letting Indiana Jones and the Great Circle<\/strong><\/em><\/a> wash over me. It\u2019s been a very long time since we had anything even remotely good with this franchise, but this game seems to really nail the vibe.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Mike<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cReading the gargantuan Wind and Truth<\/strong><\/em><\/a> from Brandon Sanderson! It\u2019s been quite a doozy of a book.\u201d \u2013 Jiatao<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI needed a cheap pair of earbuds while I wait for the AirPods Pro 3. I bought the Baseus Bowie MA10<\/strong><\/a> and they work better than I could ask for. They do exactly what I need them to do: play my music and podcasts.\u201d \u2014 Alex<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI just bought a ROG Ally X<\/strong><\/a> and I\u2019m excited to dual boot it with Bazzite<\/strong><\/a> to turn it into half Steam Deck \/ half Windows gaming handheld, so that I can get the best of both worlds.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Benny<\/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