Hello friends, welcome to Installer No. 44, your guide to the best and Edge-the best in the world. (If you are new here, welcome, we are very excited that you found us, and you can also read all the old editions at Installer Homepage.)
This week I have been writing about why I love Boox Palmareading about hot dog contests and The History of Markdown and technology/netflix-amazon-disney-sony-streaming.html”>The future of streaminglooking On the coast and Federer and a lot of football (it has been a very sporting week), mourning the end of the Long way podcast, developing a strange obsession with salt water taffyI'm re-testing the Apple Vision Pro and trying every method I can find to make a good iced coffee at home.
I also have for you a pair of great new Bluetooth speakers, the new season of Hulu's best show, an app to convert everything to audio, and much more.
Also, quick news on cleanliness: no. Installer Next week. It's a holiday here in the US (and it's also my birthday), so I'll be outside grilling things and getting sunburned. But keep sending recommendations and we'll send you a great one right away.
(As always, the best part of Installer These are your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should know? What app should everyone be using? Tell me all about it: [email protected]. And if you know anyone else who might enjoy Installerforward them and tell them to subscribe here).
The drop
- The UE Wonderboom 4. A few weeks ago, I said that the best speaker advice I can give you was to buy a UE Wonderboom. I stand by that, especially now that there's a new one out that charges with USB-C! The new EverboomWith a built-in carabiner and an extra touch of sound, it's very tempting, but you can't beat this for $100.
- shop/product/MW443LL/A/beats-pill-wireless-bluetooth-speaker-matte-black”>The heartbeat pill. More new speakers! I have a soft spot for good-looking portable sound systems, and the new Pill looks fantastic. Chris Welch likes the way it sounds, and I love that it has wired audio and charges other devices via the USB-C port. Beats has done well in this regard, though I'm still a Wonderboomin fan.
- shop.theverge.com/”>Edge dress. I really try not to advertise. Edge There's a lot going on here, but I'm really excited about the new stuff we've been working on. I like the hoodie in particular and the mug (finally the right size). Renovating our store has been a fun project and I hope you like them too.
- “The death of the follower and the future of creativity on the Web.” I've always loved listening to Jack Conte talk about the Internet and I stumbled upon this talk from SXSW where he basically explains how “follow” and “subscribe” changed the world and how we need to change it again.
- ElevenLabs Reader. ElevenLabs creates ai voices better than any other product I've seen and created this iPhone app (soon available for Android, apparently) in a very clever way. Just share any article, book or PDF in the app, choose a voice and the app will read it aloud.
- Blackmagic Camera for Android. There's a really annoying lack of good third-party camera apps for Android, but this one is good, with plenty of manual controls and instant response. It's only available on a few phones for now, but I'll take what I can get.
- Notions Sites. It's a simple but very smart idea: create a Notion page and, with a single click, publish it to the web. If you want, for example, a single-page personal website or a quick and easy events page, this is much easier than almost anything else out there.
- The bear season 3. I agree with everyone who is upset that Hulu released this season all at once instead of a week at a time. Make the show longer, give us time to obsess over it! That being said, I will be watching every second of the series this weekend. And then I'll rewatch all three seasons as soon as it's over.
- Figma Slides. Figma received some major updates this week: a redesign, a ton of ai features, and more. But Slides is particularly great. It's a combination design tool and presentation tool, and it seems a lot more fun to play with than PowerPoint.
Share screen
Yo think the first Sara Dietschy The video I saw was the one where she explained it perfectly. How to vlog with Casey Neistat(That title, by the way, is like a perfect time capsule from 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 to just… life. And more recently, as a new mom, it’s been great to watch her go through the same things going on in my house.
I asked Sara to share her home screen with us, curious to see how she balances life stuff with creator stuff. They're both very demanding and we all only have one home screen, you know? Turns out there's a little bit of both in there, but mostly life stuff.
Here's Sara's home screen, plus some information about 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 widgets, so I always have the stones I'm looking at and the weather front and center.
The applications: Phone, Watch, 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 apps that I use several times a day.
The to-do widget is from the Things app, where all my to-dos are saved 🙂 But at least they're super organized.
I also asked Sara to share some things she's interested in right now. This is what she sent:
- Blackmagic Camera. An AMAZING camera app that lets you record Apple Log with a reasonable file size. (Shooting Log in Apple Camera will leave you with massive ProRes HQ files.)
- apple notes. I recently downsized my team and am obsessed with the speed and simplicity of Notes instead of Notion, which I used to use religiously. Now, Notion is only used for projects I am working on that require other people.
- nanita. The best baby monitor ever. The feature-packed app makes the expensive hardware worth paying for. The PiP feature works perfectly and you can control the baby monitor's audio in the background while listening to a podcast or music.
- I'm really into 3D printing right now. It has led me to many “creator” YouTube channels. I'm currently binge-watching. The Adam Savage Test channel.
Collective participation
This is what it says Installer This week, the community is interested in what you like. I want to know what you like too! [email protected] or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations on anything and every week we'll include some of our favorites. And for more great recommendations than I could possibly fit in here, check out the answers to This post in Threads.
“Watch chess in Installer It made me think of another great chess game! Really bad chess “Zach Gage's game is really good for my brain. It's available for iOS and Android with an in-app purchase, and it's free if you pay for Apple Arcade.” – Harvey
“It saddens me that more people don't know about”17776” and “20020“, stories from the distant future about football and smart satellites.” –Lego
“I just finished The temptation of force by Tessa Gratton. It is the last novel of the Star Wars: The High Republic “The story is very interesting and these books remain some of my favorites of the last 10 years, certainly in the Star Wars universe. They are set a few hundred years before the movies and I would recommend them to any fan.” – Justin
“Start curing a bacon and capicola using Umai dry vacuum bagsI don't have a good place to cure and dry meats in our city house, so it's nice to be able to do it in the refrigerator. Plus, I get to use the new vacuum sealer my family gave me for Father's Day!” –Timothy
“Anil Dash wrote two posts about What does a board of directors do?And it's fascinating! It's a must read if you're interested in knowing how corporate governance works.” – Richard
“I have been dedicating myself to lateral discharge. It's amazing what you can get with a developer ID and the cracked iPhone apps out there.” – Dawit
“I can't stop playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor on PC. In this roguelike, you are a dwarf mining precious minerals and fighting hordes of insects on an alien planet. It's ridiculously fun, easy to learn, and navigating the weapon and skill systems is completely satisfying.” – Abhimanyu
“A while back, I went through the same journey you seem to be on: 'I want a Light phone, but… what if I turned my iPhone into a light phone?' The option I like the most is to build my own with Widgy Widgets. It's a very powerful app that lets you create your own widgets. It's not intuitive and has way more power than I'd ever need, but it's awesome to build your own Light Phone.” – Tomás
“I'm halfway through Adrian Tchaikovsky's new science fiction book, Service modeland it’s a great story about ai and our dependence on technology. I can’t put it down! – Sighs
Sign off
Before bed, my wife and I sit down almost every night to watch something together. Sometimes we talk about everything, sometimes we watch the show, sometimes we just sit and look at our phones the whole time. It's nice all three ways! I suspect a lot of people have their relaxation shows, but let me tell you about ours: The Great Food Truck Race on Food Network. (Well, Max now, but you know what I mean.) It's like a cooking show meets The amazing race, there are 16 seasons, and season 17 starts this weekend! – and it's all silly and fantastic. My wife and I have also developed 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 working your brain too hard, check out food trucks. (And if you have any other shows like this that I should check out, let me know. We're stuck on food trucks and it's a problem.)
Have a great holiday to all celebrating. See you in two weeks!