Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 106, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, Happy Thanksgiving Week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been reading about prediction markets and Hilary Duff and Matt Belloni and yeast, clearing space for a Steam Machine, playing News Tower thanks to Stephen Totilo’s recommendation, checking to make sure I remember all the Wicked lyrics (I do, don’t worry) before seeing For Good, giving up on my fantasy football team, and recording season two of Version History. It’s a fun one.
I also have for you a new way to use your Windows computer, Google’s new LLM, a documentary that’ll take up your whole weekend in the best way, and much more.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / playing / building / snacking on this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- Raycast for Windows. Raycast — a launcher, clipboard manager, shortcut system, and much more — is the first app I install on any new Mac. Now it’s finally on Windows, too! It’s not quite on par with the Mac app in this public beta, but it’s pretty close, and I suspect it’ll make a lot of things about your computer better.
- Kirby Air Riders. I don’t think anyone expected this game, a Switch 2 sequel to a delightful but deeply weird GameCube title. It’s a racing game, and a battle game, and it doesn’t let you do very much but also seems to be totally filled with havoc and chaos all the time. Perfect combo, if you ask me.
- Marvel’s Deadpool VR. I don’t remember the last time a new VR game caused me to actually get my Quest out of its charging stand. But this one, with Neil Patrick Harris voicing Deadpool and a lot of the same bonkers action energy as the movies, might just get me playing again.
- Gemini 3. Google’s LLM appears to be among the best all-purpose models available right now, and you can use it practically everywhere. It’s in the app, it’s in Search, you can use it to make apps and visualizations and all sorts of things. Google… might be winning.
- The Samsung Smart Keyboard. A super light, super small keyboard is a sneaky great travel accessory — bring this and your phone or tablet, and you’ll be amazed how much you can get done in a pinch without needing your laptop. You can find models cheaper than the $110 this’ll set you back, but the size and weight are hard to beat.
- Comet for Android. All the AI browsers seem to start on Apple devices — and mostly just Macs — so it’s good to see them spreading out to the rest of the ecosystem. Quick summaries and answers are actually a killer use case for a mobile browser.
- The American Revolution. Ken Burns alert! And a timely one, at that, as Burns drops a 12-hour history lesson on how the USA was created. Even the bits I’ve seen are complex and bound to make some people mad — but nobody does this like Burns does it.
- “NASA Shares Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Images.” NBD, just a bunch of data and images about a comet traveling from another freaking solar system. This stream is an hour long but totally worth it, and there’s a great explainer on the NASA site too.
- The Analogue 3D. I have been waiting for this thing — an Analogue console based on the Nintendo 64 — for so long I had basically given up hoping it would ever ship. But now it’s shipping! The reviews are excellent, the games are plentiful, the only problem is this thing can’t seem to stay in stock.
At this point, my most-used device other than my phone is my Boox Palma. If you’ve been reading this newsletter, or my other work, for a while, this will not surprise you. As a result, over the last couple of years I have become a lot of people’s Palma guide — turns out I’m not the only person sold on the idea of a more focused, minimalist device that fits in my pocket.
I just reviewed the new Palma 2 Pro (which I was excited about and super disappointed by), so I had occasion to rethink my Palma usage. I like where my new homescreen ended up, and ported it back to the Palma 2 I still like. I figured I’d share. Here it is:
(Funny thing about that screenshot: It doesn’t look like that on my device! It’s black and white on the Palma’s E Ink screen. Looks much better that way.)
The wallpaper: It’s called “Tree,” and it’s one of the built-in wallpapers. I had it blank for a while, but this one feels better to me for some reason.
The apps: Claude, NYT Games, MyMind, Libby, Roku, Kindle, Readwise Reader, Workflowy, Spotify, Pocket Casts.
It’s pretty straightforward, really. Kindle and Libby for reading books, Reader for articles. Spotify for listening to music, Pocket Casts for podcasts. (I hate Spotify as a podcast app.) Workflowy for taking quick notes (it’s a very sparse app, which is perfect on the E Ink screen), MyMind for saving quotes, screenshots, and other snippets of stuff I come across. NYT Games because that’s what I do in bed and this thing mostly lives by my bed. Claude in case I need to look something up — I’ll do anything to avoid lots of typing on the Palma. And Roku as a backup TV remote in a pinch, which has come in handy more than once.
The only other app I’ve installed on the Palma is 1Password, but that doesn’t need to be on the homescreen. This setup does everything I need and precisely nothing else. Which is exactly what I’m looking for.
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com or 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 to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.
“Just replaced the battery in a 10 year old PS Vita with an iFixit kit and it took me like 20 minutes and was actually super fun.” — Jonathan
“After years of ignoring well-meant advice about this new and somehow unusual way to learn a language, I finally gave in and listened to a few short Language Transfer lessons. I’ve never been so completely captivated by a teaching method: seemingly nothing special, yet in reality a true game changer. By explaining how a language works through short conversations, you really grasp and learn it. I even adjusted my own language lessons (I teach in secondary education). Language Transfer is that good. And it’s free.” — Pieter
“Currently reading this awesome coffee table book all about the Jordan Brand. It’s about the advertising, his brand, the photography, etc., instead of his career as a player. The first chapter is about 40 years of his shoe evolution..” — Boukou
“Rewatching Stranger Things season 1-4 before the last season drops next week.” — Alex
“I’ve gotten into physical pocket notebooks again. I bought a Space Pen because it’s nice and small, and now keep a Field Notes notebook with me at all times and use it for everything: to-do lists, ideas, journaling, etc. It’s quite addictive and I highly recommend it.” — Josh
“Trying out a new animated wallpaper app for Mac called Backdrop. It’s the only one I’ve seen that unifies an animated wallpaper between your desktop and lock screen.” — Russ
“Just started reading Beyond a Boundary by CLR James. It is billed as THE GREATEST SPORTS BOOK EVER WRITTEN, but mostly got it because I enjoyed The Black Jacobins. Also the cover is easily top 5 all time (first place is forever the Penguin Galaxy version of The Left Hand of Darkness).” — Rich
“My recommendation is for Cyberspace.online. It’s social media, but text based; like when the internet was good. I haven’t had this much fun online since 2007 with the original Tumblr!” – Jordan
“Writing to recommend the Rock Planner app for iPad. It’s buggy, it’s primitive, BUT — and I hope you’re ready for this — you can annotate your calendar entries! It displays your calendar then allows you to write on it with the pencil. Even has a to-do section next to it. It was made by the people who created the Rock paper and pencil tip (highly recommended btw).” — Mario
We live in weird times, where it’s often hard to know what’s real and what isn’t. When I first saw a photo of a skydiver in front of the sun, I just filed it under “AI” and went about my day. But I was wrong! What it is instead is one of the most remarkable photos I’ve ever seen: a shot with remarkable detail that required an astonishing amount of planning and very human creativity. And the photographer, Andrew McCarthy — who you might know as @cosmic_background on Instagram — has a portfolio full of similarly awe-inspiring work. My favorite follow in a while.
