Plus, in this week’s Installer: A cool F1 trailer, the latest version of Android, a pretty new Fuji, and much more.
Plus, in this week’s Installer: A cool F1 trailer, the latest version of Android, a pretty new Fuji, and much more.
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Hi, friends! Welcome toInstallerNo. 87, your guide to the best andVerge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy It’s Officially Too Hot Now Week, and also you can read all the old editions at theInstallerhomepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading aboutSabrina CarpenterandKhaby Lameandintimacy coordinators, finally making a dent inBarbarians at the Gate,watching all theBen Schwartz and FriendsI can find on YouTube,planning my days with thenew Finalist beta, recklessly installing all theApple developer betasafter WWDC, thoroughly enjoyingDakota Johnson’s current press tour, and trying to clear all my inboxes before I go on parental leave. It’s… going.
I also have for you a much-awaited new browser, a surprise update to a great photo editor, a neat trailer for a meh-looking movie, a classic Steve Jobs speech, and much more. Slightly shorter issue this week, sorry; there’s just a lot going on, but I didn’t want to leave y’all hanging entirely. Oh, and:we’ll be off next week, for Juneteenth, vacation, and general summer chaos reasons. We’ll be back in full force after that, though! Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part ofInstalleris 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. And if you know someone else who might enjoyInstaller, forward it to them and tell them tosubscribe here.)
Here’s what theInstallercommunity is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comor message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies tothis post on Threadsandthis post on Bluesky.
“I had tried the paper planner in the leather Paper Republic journal but since have moved onto theRemarkable Paper Procolor e-ink device which takes everything you like about paper but makes it editable and color coded. Combine this with a Remarkable planner in PDF format off of Etsy and you are golden.” — Jason
“I started reading a manga series from content creator Cory Kenshin calledMonsters We Make. So far, I love it. Already preordered Vol. 2.” — Rob
“I recently went down the third party controller rabbit hole after my trusty adapted Xbox One controller finally kicked the bucket, and I wanted something I could use across my PC, phone, handheld, Switch, etc. I’ve been playing with theGameSir Cyclone 2for a few weeks, and it feels really deluxe. The thumbsticks are impossibly smooth and accurate thanks to its TMR joysticks. The face buttons took a second for my brain to adjust to; the short travel distance initially registered as mushy, but once I stopped trying to pound the buttons like I was at the arcade, I found the subtle mechanical click super satisfying.” — Sam
“The Apple TV Plus miniseriesLong Way Home. It’s Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s fourthLong Wayseries. This time they are touring some European countries on vintage bikes that they fixed, and it’s such a light-hearted show from two really down to earth humans. Connecting with other people in different cultures and seeing their journey is such a treat!” — Esmael
“Podcast recommendation:Devil and the Deep Blue Seaby Christianity Today. A deep dive into the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s.” — Drew
“Splatoon 3(the free Switch 2 update) and the newHow to Train Your Dragon.” — Aaron
“I can’t putMario Kart Worlddown. When I get tired of the intense Knockout Tour mode I go to Free Roam and try to knock out P-Switch challenges, some of which are really tough! I’m obsessed.” — Dave
“Fable, a cool app for finding books with virtual book clubs. It’s the closest to a more cozy online bookstore with more honest reviews. I just wish you could click on the author’s name to see their other books.” — Astrid
“This is the Summer Games Fest week (formerly E3, RIP) and there are a TON of game demos to try out on Steam. One that has caught my attention / play time the most isWildgate. It’s a team based spaceship shooter where ship crews battle and try to escape with a powerful artifact.” — Sean
“Battlefront 2is back for some reason. Still looks great.” — Ian
I have long been fascinated by weather forecasting. I recommend Andrew Blum’s book,The Weather Machine,to people all the time, as a way to understand both how we learned to predict the weather and why it’s a literally culture-changing thing to be able to do so. And if you want to make yourself so, so angry, there’s a whole chunk of Michael Lewis’s book,The Fifth Risk,about how a bunch of companies managed to basically privatize forecasts… based on government data. The weather is a huge business, an extremely powerful political force, and even more important to our way of life than we realize. And we’re really good at predicting the weather!
I’ve also been hearing for years that weather forecasting is a perfect use for AI. It’s all about vast quantities of historical data, tiny fluctuations in readings, and finding patterns that often don’t want to be found. So, ofcourse,as soon as I read my colleague Justine Calma’sstory abouta new Google project calledWeather Lab, I spent the next hour poking through the data to see how well DeepMind managed to predict and track recent storms. It’s deeply wonky stuff, but it’s cool to see Big Tech trying to figure out Mother Nature — and almost getting it right. Almost.
A weekly newsletter by David Pierce designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Verge’s universe.
