Folding and flipping telephones are getting critically good

Hi, pals! Welcome to Installer No. 137, your information to the perfect and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (If you’re new right here, welcome, blissful cellphone season, and likewise you’ll be able to learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been studying about Google Zero and armored cars for rich people, watching numerous That’s a Bad Idea movies now that YouTube is aware of my love for Curry Barker, testing the new 2Do redesign for my duties, watching this excellent doc concerning the legendary designer Susan Kare, obsessing over each sound on the Jauffre’s Sounds TikTok, sending myself lockscreen notes with the brand new Mononote app, and attempting to vibe-code a searchable archive of every thing that’s ever been in Installer. I feel we’re gonna want extra tokens.

I even have for you a few thrilling new concepts about telephones, a tiny e-reader you would possibly love, a enjoyable manner into the Linux world, and way more. Let’s do that.

(As all the time, the perfect a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you watching / studying / taking part in / listening to / plugging right into a generator this week? Tell me every thing: [email protected]. And if you already know another person who would possibly get pleasure from Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)

I’ve been following the journey of the Light Phone for the reason that very starting. The Light Flip, which the corporate introduced this week, appears to be like like each its greatest concept and its greatest product but. It’s a gorgeous, $299 block of a minimalist flip cellphone, designed to not exchange your cellphone however simply to persuade you to depart it at house every now and then. It’s not transport till early subsequent 12 months, however I’m getting on the preorder listing as quickly as I can. I feel Light might have lastly nailed it.

To mark the launch, I requested Kai Tang, Light’s CEO and cofounder, to share his homescreen with us. I instructed him I knew he was hiding a smartphone someplace, and that I needed to see it. He swears he’s not, he’s all in on the Light Phone life, and despatched his homescreen within the smallest picture file I’ve ever obtained. Here it’s, plus some information on how Kai’s machine is ready up:

The cellphone: A Light Phone III.

The wallpaper: There isn’t any wallpaper or background setting on the Light Phone III. So it’s both matte black or gentle gray. I’ve it in black. I like my cellphone visually muted.

The apps: Phone, Alarm, Weather, Directions, Music, Language.

Most of the instruments on my telephones are fairly easy: cellphone for calls and texts, instructions / maps, music, and many others. The “Language” instrument is a personalized instrument we created for Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar’s pgLang again in 2023. The restricted version Light Phones which have this instrument preinstalled offered out within the first few hours, which was so thrilling. We are additionally massive followers of their music. The instrument is mainly an Eight Ball instrument however named “Language.” You can shake the cellphone for a random reply, i.e., “ask again, but less aggressive,” “not much doubt,” or “I’d rather not say.”

It’s not accessible publicly, nevertheless it was virtually sentimental for me from that collaboration three years in the past, so I saved it on my homescreen.

I additionally requested Kai to share a couple of issues he’s into proper now. Here’s what he despatched again:

Here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as nicely! Email [email protected] or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — along with your suggestions for something and every thing, and we’ll characteristic a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, take a look at the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.

“The Incident at Galley House was released last week and I finished it yesterday. It’s a brilliantly voice-acted, lushly-illustrated remake of last year’s Type Help, one of the best deduction games I’ve ever played.” — Andy

“The Hawk on Netflix. Will Ferrell is like a comfort hug for a millennial 😂” — Tyler

“The New Guys audiobook is a delightful author-read book about the Shuttle series of astronauts. I cannot recommend it enough as a sequel to A Man on the Moon.” — James

“My wife and I have been playing Unrailed on Switch Online with her sister and husband… it’s like Overcooked but more laid back.” — Dan

“The Boroughs is a really cool show starring an older cast and it’s very cool to see a hip, relevant sci-fi show led by an older cast, touching on really relevant social topics. It’s fantastic so far.” — Shane

“The App Store is full of great film-simulation camera apps, but those kinds of apps on Android are sketchy garbage that take bad photos. Not Candela Camera, though! It properly uses the Android camera API with high-quality film simulation, built-in & imported LUTs, and it’s $5 for a lifetime license!” — Evancito

“Reading Dead Hand Rule by Max Gladstone. Necromantic lawyers, magic capitalism, it’s a real vibe. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve enjoyed every book he’s written in the setting.” — Vernacular Ham

“Open Minis. After reading Federico Viticci’s article, I immediately installed it and linked it to Claude. Watching it do agentic things ON MY PHONE is mesmerizing. I’m an iOS-first kind of person, and being able to describe a complicated Home Assistant automation, from my phone, and watch it figure out the APIs, is truly next level.” — Burns

“I recently started playing some video games again. I was doing some Game Boy emulation. Touch controls kinda stink, so I grabbed a used Backbone Pro and was instantly a convert. The experience is great and is a great way to turn any phone into a top-tier game console.” — Tanner

Last week, after we talked about studying setups, I ended by asking you for tips about coping with newsletters. I bought a bunch, however the overwhelming majority of them amounted to one thing like: “I just get them in my email and deal with it.” Fair sufficient! Same, truthfully. But there may be one instrument I heard about a couple of instances. It’s known as Kill the Newsletter. It offers you an electronic mail deal with with which to subscribe to newsletters, after which dumps every thing despatched to that deal with right into a feed you’ll be able to learn wherever. Pipe that feed into an RSS reader, present it to your favourite AI chatbot, do with all of it as you please! If I had been beginning a publication behavior now, that is precisely what I’d begin with. Let me know when you use it, or have every other nice newslettering suggestions!