The finest apps, devices, and instruments for readers

Hi, pals! Welcome to Installer No. 136, your information to the most effective and Verge-iest stuff on the earth. (If you’re new right here, welcome, hope your neighborhood isn’t as smoky as mine, and in addition you may learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been recording the following season of Version History (this season’s finale is out on Sunday!), studying about data center heists and Backyard Baseball and the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, canceling my October plans to see Digger 30 or 40 instances, taking over the new Knockout Tour routes in Mario Kart World, studying greater than I ever supposed about Staten Island because of Revisionist History, studying up on the historical past of the very first chatbot, and organising my Flipper Busy Bar. I like the factor, and don’t know what to make use of it for.

I even have for you the film of the summer season, a terrific replace to a terrific note-taking app, a brand new app for organizing your images, and way more. Let’s go.

(As all the time, the most effective a part of Installer is your concepts and ideas. What are you studying / watching / enjoying / listening to / soldering collectively this week? Tell me all the things: installer@theverge.com. And if another person who may take pleasure in Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)

(Tiny housekeeping observe: From now on, once we do a particular part like this, it’ll be rather than Screen Share for that week. I’ve heard from a bunch of oldsters that some points are literally an excessive amount of, and this looks like commerce that additionally makes my life simpler. Win-win!)

They say reading is dead. They are, in actual fact, incorrect. A few weeks in the past, I requested you all to share your studying setups — the devices, the apps, the bookstores, the bookmark manufacturers, the highlighter colours, all the things. As all the time, you delivered! Since a bunch of you requested, earlier than we get into all of your nice gear and recommendation, right here’s my present setup:

But sufficient about me! Here are the issues I heard essentially the most about from you:

One final observe: I heard from a lot of folks that maintaining with newsletters is a tough and unsolved downside. Do you ship all the things to a studying app? An RSS feed? Try to handle it in Gmail? Who is aware of! As you might have guessed, I even have a number of newsletters I don’t know tips on how to handle. If you’ve gotten ideas, I’m all ears. And because of everybody who shared their studying setups!

Here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as properly! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — along with your suggestions for something and all the things, 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 Threads and this post on Bluesky.

“I’m moving from Google (Gmail) to a fantastic European alternative: Cirrux. With a sync service you can untie yourself from Big Tech, without losing your emails.” — Olaf

“The Ghost in the Shell anime on Amazon is the best looking thing on TV. It’s as lore-dense as a concrete brick, but if you can look past that, it’s absolutely worth the watch.” — B Carzo

“Gravity is the best / simplest note-taking app. Most note apps, as you take notes, they get lost as you add more, losing their relevance; with Gravity you can snap any note to the top of the page. The simplicity is brilliant.” — Andrew

“Thanks to Rohit for the 4×3 suggestion in last week’s Installer. The other game on the site, Smush, is also fantastic. Both are wonderful fresh takes on games from the New York Times.” — Kurt

“I ordered the Pebble Index 01 ring. I desperately want to dictate little notes to myself and opening an app on my phone is a lot of friction.” — Anna

“I just finished the book Seek Immediate Shelter by Vincent Yu. It follows a bunch of people in a small town as they get an emergency ‘incoming missile’ text, then the ‘false alert’ message about 20 minutes later, and how each person reacts during and after the alert. It was fantastic.” — Matt

“Recently stumbled upon Joon Lee’s YouTube channel. Fantastic deep dives on current sports/culture from an independent perspective. Spoiler – Most things have been ruined by gambling & private equity. In an age of hot takes and clickbait, he’s the breath of fresh air sports media fans need.” — Brett

“I’ve been playing around with Hypertexting, a new app that treats RSS (and your personal blog) like an open social network. It’s really interesting and has a lot of potential.” — Chris

“This week I’ve been reading The Interface Series, which was a sci-fi/horror web serial from about 10 years ago. Each chapter is posted as a comment in a random, unrelated Reddit thread, but it’s all been collated at /r/9M9H9E9. Fascinating speculative fiction that makes the most of its medium.” — Andie

I’ve all the time appreciated the scale and energy of an IMAX display, however till I heard Matt Damon recently explain how unusual it’s to behave into an IMAX digital camera, I don’t assume I actually understood how outstanding and sophisticated the expertise actually is. So in fact I beloved this Tested video on how IMAX is projected, this Christopher Nolan interview on how he thinks about codecs, this dive into the dying art of 70mm, and this excellent explainer on the general expertise. Fine, Chris, I’ll drive midway throughout the state to see this film correctly. You win.