Hello, mates! Welcome to Installer No. 93, your information to one of the best and Verge-iest stuff on the planet. (In case you’re new right here, welcome, I’m unhappy the solar is setting sooner, and in addition you possibly can learn all of the outdated editions on the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’m studying about the rise of GEO, laughing at Kirby’s new shapes, acknowledging Google’s good dunk on Apple, pondering of one of the best Wordle puzzle I could make, questioning if I’ll ever see Microsoft’s Windows XP-themed Crocs out within the wild, following the progress of The Bluesky Dictionary, and watching Antoni Porowski’s glorious Architectural Digest Open Door episode.
I even have for you some AI information from OpenAI, a bug-filled new season of Fortnite, a Web site of the 12 months competitors, and extra.
(As at all times, one of the best a part of Installer is your concepts and ideas. What do you need to know extra about? What superior methods are you aware that everybody else ought to? What app ought to everybody be utilizing? Inform me every part: [email protected]. And if you realize another person who may take pleasure in Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe here.)
- OpenAI’s GPT-5: OpenAI’s subsequent main AI mannequin is lastly out. The corporate guarantees it has “state-of-the-art efficiency” throughout many several types of work and is “considerably much less more likely to hallucinate” than its earlier fashions. You may attempt it out proper now in ChatGPT, even when you’re on the free plan.
- OpenAI’s GPT-OSS: Forward of GPT-5, OpenAI additionally made a splash with the discharge of GPT-OSS, its two new open-weight fashions that you could run on a laptop. Having the facility of an OpenAI mannequin, with the privateness of an area mannequin, is maybe an much more compelling choice.
- Roku’s Howdy: This new subscription service has “hundreds of titles” accessible ad-free for $2.99 per thirty days. It’s a whole lot of older stuff — once I wrote this, the web site featured issues like Soiled Dancing, Reservoir Canines, and Weeds — however for no adverts and a approach cheaper value than a whole lot of different streaming providers, I might see this being an enormous hit.
- TP-Link’s Wi-Fi 7 BE3600 Travel Router: This Wi-Fi 7 journey router looks like it might prevent some wi-fi connection hassles whereas on a giant household journey. It really works with as much as 90 gadgets directly, which I’m guessing will likely be greater than sufficient for many households.
- Camp Snap CS-8: This digital camera seems a bit like a traditional Tremendous 8 movie digital camera, and whereas it makes use of SD card storage, there’s no display screen you should use to see what you’ve shot. That may very well be annoying, however I additionally assume it may very well be actually enjoyable.
- Fortnite’s new Shock ‘N Awesome season: The film industry battle royale replace provides bug infestations to the Fortnite island, however you possibly can take them on as a Energy Ranger. This looks like a season made for 90s kids, so I don’t assume I’ll have the opportunity to withstand checking this out.
- Is This Seat Taken?: In case you’re on the lookout for one thing just a little decrease key, this chill new puzzle sport that asks you to search out the correct seat for lovable little shapes is nice. I’ve performed the entire thing, and it’s delightful.
- The 2025 Tiny Awards nominations: You’ve till September 1st to vote on one among 11 extraordinarily cool web sites to be Web site of the 12 months. I haven’t selected my choose, however I’m a giant fan of Cloudgazing.
Immediately, I’m that includes Siri Ramos, the founding father of Mechanism, which makes mounts and grips for handheld gaming gadgets just like the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Change 2. I unexpectedly met Siri at a current Triple Click reside recording, and I reached out as a result of I assumed he might need an attention-grabbing homescreen. My hunch was proper — I’ll let him share extra:
“A couple of months in the past I spotted how a lot time I used to be losing on my cellphone and determined to make it much less interesting and extra useful. As an alternative of shopping for a minimal cellphone just like the Gentle Telephone, I made a decision to transform my iPhone 14 Professional right into a dopamine-reduced model to check. I additionally use a matte display screen protector to finish the Gentle cellphone look, which is surprisingly cool.
Photos: Siri Ramos
The wallpaper: A boring gray to imitate the Gentle Telephone
- Notion Calendar widget
- Macrofactor widget: an incredible algorithmic vitamin tracker that works for each gaining and shedding weight, relying in your objectives.
- Climate: the inventory iOS Climate app
The principle homescreen apps:
- Notion Calendar (once more), with color-matched background
- SyncTasks: takes your Notion duties and syncs them to a candy interactive homescreen widget
The homescreen apps on web page two:
- Blank Spaces Launcher: This lets you have an app listing like proven, mimicking the Gentle Telephone. You may change the names of the apps to be generic. Like “Podcasts” results in Overcast, my podcast app of selection. Or “Exercise” results in Stronglifts 5×5, and many others.
The docked apps: I used a minimal black icon pack combined with Siri shortcuts, aside from the Superhuman e mail app.
I additionally requested Siri to share a number of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he stated:
- I simply binged the seventh novel of Dungeon Crawler Carl so quick it was foolish. Extremely enjoyable reads which might be considerably arduous to explain. Possibly like… Starvation Video games meets video video games? Gentle-hearted and eminently binge-able.
- Who isn’t into Donkey Kong Bananza proper now? I’m simply ending up the snow / ice sublayer.
- For some motive, chess lately bought its addictive claws into me. It’s a lot simpler to justify than doomscrolling because it pretends to be a mind train. Possibly I have to detox from this one too…
- I’m huge into kiteboarding (I am going to Hood River a ton for this), and I simply bought the Surfr app on my Apple Watch to trace my soar heights in actual time. It’s fairly cool!
Right here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as properly! Electronic mail [email protected] along with your suggestions for something and every part, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, try the replies to this post on The Verge, this post on Threads, and this post on Bluesky.
“For the primary time in a number of years I’m enjoying round with some embedded programming platforms, particularly Arduino and the Pi Pico. It’s superb that I can get a pc extra highly effective than the desktop I owned in highschool for lower than ten {dollars}.” — Matthew
“Simply bought my new CRKD guitar, loving it, and diving again into Clone Hero and YARG, the trendy open supply variations of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. And nice timing, Red Octane is again to make a brand new rhythm sport!” — Bruno
“I’m deeply impressed by the Lord of the Rings audiobook by Andy Serkis. It’s insane how in a different way the characters sound (and the way just like motion pictures).” — Jakub
“This week I took management of my RSS reader by shifting from Inoreader to a self-hosted Miniflux occasion. It was truly tremendous straightforward to get working, and it’s cool to have the ability to use totally different third-party native apps once more. It appears like I’m again within the good ol’ Google Reader days once more.” — gnu_slash_dhruv
“I’ve been watching Superman: The Animated Series on HBO Max. I like how the collection makes essentially the most of its sci-fi premise, alongside compelling cinematography and stirring music. Extremely advocate!” — Blue Savoy
“This video from Julian O’Shea about vehicles getting big is extraordinarily properly accomplished, and the half about pedestrian fatalities is legitimately shifting. In case you’re in want of lighter fare, CityNerd’s new video in regards to the Vegas Loop being pathetically silly is a superb comply with up piece.” — cowboyxboombap
“I exploit a mostly-QWERTY layout, however have a ZSA Moonlander keyboard and have personalized it to my programmer/sport tastes. I can truly touch-type now with this keyboard. It folds up so properly that I journey with it on a regular basis, and it will get feedback each time I exploit it. — Ron
“I’d wish to advocate Apocalypse Hotel! It’s an enthralling anime a few group of robots operating a resort lengthy after humanity left the planet. It’s bought a beautiful bittersweet however optimistic temper to it as they wait patiently for humanity to return. And it’s fairly humorous as properly.” — Graham
Because of everybody who wrote of their tales of alternate keyboard layouts. There’s a good few Dvorak customers on the market, however I heard from a fellow Colemak typist and even a Norman person! In case you’re keen on attempting an alternate keyboard, I truly advocate the problem — it’s a enjoyable approach to re-wire your pc mind. (And perhaps give your self an opportunity to repair some dangerous typing habits.)
Additionally thanks very a lot to Troy, who, in response to my remark about contemplating a TV on wheels, shared the setup he makes use of. “In case you are keen on a rolling TV, what we did was buy a rolling TV stand from Amazon for $99, a 43-inch TCL Roku TV, and a $20 cowl. Works nice, we use it everywhere in the home and yard.” If I had extra closet house to “retailer” our TV once we weren’t utilizing it, I might have ordered a cart and a canopy yesterday. Sometime, although, I’m positive I’m going to finish up attempting to reside this life.