Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer<\/em> No. 9, your guide to the best and Verge<\/em>-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, hurray! I\u2019m so happy you\u2019re here, and also, you can catch up on all the old editions at the Installer<\/em> homepage<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, I\u2019ve been reading Zeke Faux\u2019s excellent crypto book<\/strong><\/a> and the story of the viral cookies that suddenly disappeared<\/strong><\/a>, trying desperately to figure out what the heck the Humane AI Pin<\/strong><\/a> actually does, pouring all my notes and tasks into NotePlan<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>watching the new-to-Netflix season of The Great British Baking Show<\/strong><\/em><\/a> <\/em>and anything at all I can find about The Sphere in Vegas<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>and am on like my fourth week of being totally obsessed with the history of the AltaVista search engine<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, I also have for you a new smartwatch, a great new Spotify feature, several new games to dive into, a recipe app, and some new book recommendations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I also have a specific question for you: What do you use to track all the stuff you want to watch, read, and listen to?<\/strong> Do you have a bunch of apps? Some lists? A wild Excel spreadsheet? Your own memory? Nothing at all? I want to know all your media-tracking tips, and I\u2019ll share a bunch in next week\u2019s Installer<\/em>. Send an email to installer@theverge.com<\/a>, text me at (203) 570-8663, or find me on all the socials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In general, of course, the best part of Installer<\/em> is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What app should everyone know about? What show \/ podcast \/ game is everyone missing out on? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com<\/a>. And if you want to get every issue a day early in your inbox, you can subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Okay, we have a lot to get to this week. Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned in Installer<\/em><\/a> that a new app called Orion<\/strong><\/a> had come out. It turns your iPad into a display for pretty much anything that uses a display, from a game console to a Windows 98 computer<\/a>. It\u2019s a simple concept, but Orion is a really fun and clever app.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I heard from a lot of folks (a lot <\/em>of folks) that you were into Orion. So I asked Sebastiaan de With, the co-creator of Orion and Halide and other apps, to share a few unexpected tips and tricks on how to make the most of Orion. Here\u2019s what he said:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Taylor Lorenz<\/a> is the most online person I know, which makes her extremely qualified to write a book called Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. <\/em>It also makes it totally unsurprising that the book is excellent. She charts the whole history of the social web and the rise of influencers alongside it. I\u2019ve been following this space closely for a long time, and I still learned a huge amount from the book. It\u2019s out now; you should read it! And if you missed Taylor chatting with us on The Vergecast<\/em> a few weeks ago, check that out, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I asked Taylor to share her homescreen with us, figuring she probably had an app or three I\u2019d never even heard of. I was exactly right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s Taylor\u2019s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The apps:<\/strong> Photos, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Calculator, Weather, Google Docs (I write a lot of stories on my phone), Apple Notes (I write things that I wanna remember and never check again), Messages, Instagram, Settings, Signal, Erewhon (after two years in LA, I finally caved and got the membership), Bluesky (I\u2019m still searching for a good Twitter alternative), TikTok, Mastodon, Discord (one of my favorite social media apps), YouTube, Threads, Spotify, Voice Memos, Hype Machine (I think Spotify is too algorithmic, and I like that Hype Machine gives me music that I would never find elsewhere), Slack, YouTube, Substack, Phone, Camera, Gmail, Safari.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The wallpaper:<\/strong> the internet\u2019s favorite meme<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n As always, I also asked Taylor to share a few things she\u2019s into right now. Here\u2019s what she said:<\/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> with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we\u2019ll feature some of our favorites here every week.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cDiscover Quickly<\/strong><\/a> lets you fall into a rabbit hole of your Spotify library by letting you traverse through music quickly and visually. It displays album covers of all songs and playlists in your library (including the all-important Discover Weekly) and allows you to hear a short clip of each track just by hovering over the album cover of your choice. It\u2019s more like a scavenger hunt than poring over pages of lists.\u201d \u2014 Karan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cCurrently watching the remake of Rurouni Kenshin<\/strong><\/em><\/a> anime in Crunchyroll.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Christian<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI just have to let you know that for whatever reason, Pi<\/strong><\/a> is the most slept-on conversational AI there is, by far. It is capable of handling complex searches in the background and formatting the information it\u2019s scanned to present it in a highly digestible and highly human way. My main critique of ChatGPT is that it can bombard the user with information, and most of the time, all I want is the gist.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Jacob<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFallout Shelter<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong> Highly engaging strategy game, to just survive against all odds. Played two consecutive nights without dropping the tablet. Once you figure out the overall survival plan, maybe it\u2019s easy. Yet to be determined.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Prabhat<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPaprika<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong> An app that lets you save recipes from anywhere, Raindrop-style, but it also extracts the ingredients and steps from even the most seo-text-laden of webpages. It\u2019s so good.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Luke<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been using and recommending RunPee<\/strong><\/a> to people for like over 10 years now. I know the UI \/ UX leaves a lot to be desired, but it\u2019s an amazing app. When you\u2019re watching a movie and need to pee, you open the app, and it tells you good times you can run to the bathroom. It tells you the cue in the film (whether it\u2019s a visual or audio cue) and the amount of time you have to use the bathroom. It will also tell you a summary of everything you miss while you\u2019re gone. It\u2019s a family that runs it, and they keep it up to date with movies in movie theaters.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Ryan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWellness<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Nathan Hill! Arc Max<\/strong><\/a> for browsing.\u201d \u2014 Nation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re into challenging puzzle games that also look positively gorgeous and sound absolutely mesmerizing, you cannot miss Cocoon<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. I just finished it (takes a couple of hours) but was consistently amazed at the art (both visual and audio) and the puzzle design. Not a single word is spoken in the entire game, and there are zero tutorials. You just drop to a planet and start playing. It\u2019s brilliant and the best game I\u2019ve played in a long time.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Ismar<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFor reasons I don\u2019t fully understand, everyone I know seems to be rewatching The Good Wife<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Myself included.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Peter<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe Drop<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Pro tips<\/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