A supercheap Android telephone with appears to be like to spare

Hello, mates! Welcome to Installer No. 45, your information to the perfect and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (Should you’re new right here, welcome, sorry I like productiveness apps a lot, and likewise you possibly can learn all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.) 

I’m again from a number of days off, feeling rested and sunburned and able to rumble. Because of everybody who despatched birthday needs! This week, I’ve been studying Made for Love and tales about AI avid gamers and AI musicians and Ferrari EVs, watching Turning Level, changing my climate app with Lazy Climate, raging at Ira Glass for listening to podcasts at 2x velocity, and spilling all my emotions to the Dot AI bot.

I even have for you a brand new telephone, a brand new sensible ring, a brand new / previous podcast reunion, a sci-fi present everybody appears to like, a pleasant replace to an excellent recipe app, and a wild new AI pod to take a look at. Lots happening for the center of July! Let’s dig in.

(As all the time, the perfect a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you into proper now? What ought to everybody else be studying / watching / taking part in / consuming / downloading / storing for winter? Inform me the whole lot: installer@theverge.com. And if another person who may take pleasure in Installer, inform them to subscribe right here.)

• The CMF Telephone 1. A pleasant-looking, long-lasting Android telephone for $200? With an OLED display and interchangeable backplates and a bunch of actually cool equipment, one in all which is a kickstand? Sure. Please. In orange, in fact.
• The Samsung Galaxy Ring. I’m nonetheless a fan of Samsung’s Fold and Flip telephones, although the brand new fashions are very same-y and much more costly. However I’m most excited in regards to the Galaxy Ring, which appears to have just about nailed the sensible ring {hardware} — and even has some attention-grabbing concepts about gesture management.
• “The Diggnation Reunion Part 1.” Should you’re a tech lover of a sure age, there’s a powerful probability you grew up watching Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht drink and make jokes about tech whereas sitting on a sofa. Watching the fellows get again collectively was a pleasant blast from the previous. And there’s a component two, too!
• Delta 1.6. Delta’s recreation emulation is on the iPad! I’m really undecided how a lot I’ll use this given how a lot of my retro gaming is on an iPhone with a Spine controller. However this replace, with a much bigger display and help for a number of video games directly, does sound fairly nice.
• Amazon’s new Echo Spot. To me, that is the precise proper steadiness of issues for an Alexa speaker. It’s small, it’s $45 (for now), it has a touchscreen however no digicam, and it’s the appropriate dimension for a nightstand. I hold promising to depart my telephone out of my bed room, and perhaps this’ll change it.
• Sunny. A lady loses her husband however will get a robotic from his tech firm to assist her by way of it. Strangeness ensues. Such a superb premise! And by all accounts, this present continues Apple TV Plus’ run of nice sci-fi stuff. I’ll positively catch up earlier than episode 3 drops on Wednesday.
• Openvibe. Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, and Nostr, multi function timeline in a single app. That is mainly a intelligent hack, not the interconnected social universe of my goals, however it’s a reasonably good hack! And I like that it mainly hides which community persons are utilizing; it’s simply folks, in a timeline.
• Pestle. I like a superb recipe app. I largely use Crouton and Mela, however Pestle’s new means to import recipes from Instagram Reels is fairly superior. Simply drop within the hyperlink, give it a reputation, and it’ll flip a video right into a bunch of substances and steps.

One million years in the past, I used to be an intern at Wired, and one of many tales I bought to assist work on was this wild factor the place a author had determined to fully disappear and see if the web may discover him. The story turned out superior, and the author was Evan Ratliff, who has been one in all my favourite journalists ever since. He cofounded The Atavist Journal and did a ton of nice work there, created the terrific Persona podcast, and till lately, was one of many cohosts of Longform, the journalism podcast I all the time dreamed I would someday get invited on. Alas.

Now Evan has a brand new podcast out, referred to as Shell Recreation, by which he makes use of an AI clone of his voice to trigger all types of chaos in his personal life. The primary episode is superior, and I’m very excited for what’s subsequent. I requested Evan to share his homescreen with us to see if he had any podcasting methods I would steal from him and to see how AI-ified his life had develop into.

Right here’s Evan’s homescreen, plus some information on the apps he makes use of and why:

The telephone: iPhone 13 Mini. 

The wallpaper: The one I’ve despatched right here is my cat Henry, an 18-year-old icon who was as soon as a mini-celebrity on Vine and is the sweetest creature on earth. (Usually it’s my youngsters, however I don’t enable pictures of them on the open web.)

The apps: Google Maps, Images, Apple Notes, Slack, Settings, Clock, Telephone, WhatsApp, Sign, Freedom, Google Translate, CloudBeats, Scrivener, Instapaper, Spotify, TuneIn, Libby, Gmail, Google Calendar, Messages, Courageous.

My homescreen guidelines are not any social media, no information. I’m a licensed information junkie, however I at the least need it just a little out of view. And no Twitter app on the telephone, ever. As for some apps:

• Children [group]: A factor they don’t inform you about parenting within the 2020s is what number of faculty, camp, and bus apps you might be pressured to amass and verify.
• Ships / planes: The one AR apps I’ve ever used. I really feel like a wizard simply pointing Flightradar24 on the sky or MarineTraffic on the sea to see the place ships and planes are coming from and going to. My father research logistics and instilled in me a curiosity about how issues get from place to position. 
• CloudBeats: Important for listening to podcast drafts whereas operating and strolling round; with Shell Recreation in manufacturing, I’m on this factor for hours a day generally. 
• Libby: Any New Yorker who doesn’t have it’s lacking out. You may seize ebooks and audiobooks from the library and hearken to them proper right here! 
• Instapaper: Anybody else nonetheless utilizing Instapaper on the market? I don’t even know who owns this factor anymore. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless how I learn longform stuff I’ve saved. 

I additionally requested Evan to share a number of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he shared:

• Moss. Made a moss backyard this yr and I’m into all issues moss-related. Web sites on the best way to preserve it and its unimaginable properties, moss gurus (e.g., Mossin’ Annie). Moss! 
• The brand new Charley Crockett album. Only a genius songwriter and singer, with an unimaginable story. Excellent hear whereas strolling in your moss (which you have to).
• At the moment revisiting The Braindead Megaphone, George Saunders’ essay assortment, elements of which really feel very Shell Recreation-relevant to me. 
• My sister-in-law, who’s 50x extra culturally conscious than I, turned us on to this British comedian recreation present, Taskmaster. The right decompression after a day working alongside your AI doppelganger.

Right here’s what the Installer group is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as effectively! E mail installer@theverge.com or message me on Sign — @davidpierce.11 — together with your suggestions for something and the whole lot, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. For much more nice suggestions, try the replies to this publish on Threads.

“I just wanted to share an app that (and it is a shock for me) no one knows about. It’s called Slick Inbox. The idea is very simple: it allows you to create your own inbox only for newsletters. I hate reading newsletters in my personal Gmail box, and this is a very convenient solution to my problem.” – Denis

“I just binged all six episodes of Netflix’s Supacell. It’s like Heroes but grimier, set in South London, with an almost entirely Black cast and made by Rapman. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen this year and such a fresh show in a genre that is basically monopolized by Marvel.” – Guilherme

“Currently reading The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil. We are lucky to see human evolution in real time.” – Matthew

“Best Ball drafts on Underdog Fantasy. What was once a niche version of fantasy football is now an (absurdly?) popular sports betting format where players draft an entire team within an hour or less and then compete against strangers. It’s kind of like trying to win a March Madness bracket but you draft a fantasy football roster.” – Noah

“Using the VR Exercise Tracker app created by the VR Health Institute. They use science-backed measurement of VR activity to help you measure your VR workouts. Connects with Apple Watch and other Bluetooth fitness devices.” – Dan

“As a new dad, Dungeons & Daddies resonates with me in a special way. This (self-described non-BDSM) podcast puts a hilarious twist on D&D, following four dads navigating a fantastical realm to rescue their lost sons. It’s made me laugh harder than I have in a long time and made me cry more than once. I’ve binged the first season three times already (that’s more than 180 hours of listening) and am relistening to the second season now.” – Mark

“Just bought a Boox Go 10.3 E Ink tablet and am really enjoying it. Very slim, nicely designed, no front light, and fairly great to write on when needed. It’s meant more as a competitor to the Remarkable 2 (i.e., a note-taking device), but I’m enjoying it for reading articles via Omnivore.” – Patrick

“I’ve recently started reading a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport on the merits of dedicating time to focus on a task with minimal distractions. My attention span, along with many others in recent years, has been obliterated, hence me picking up this book to try and rectify my ability to focus deeply.” – Dave

“Apple PenLite: The iPad Before the iPad.” I’ve been watching Colin Holter’s channel for a number of years now and actually love his stuff, however this video is basically one thing completely different for him. He interviewed a number of former Apple staff, and I assumed it was rather well completed. I used to be actually younger through the time interval that is about, so I don’t keep in mind any information about these items, however it was so attention-grabbing to get this type of perspective from the engineers and product managers working at Apple on the time.” – Ian

I sincerely consider that “Every Frame a Painting” is the perfect YouTube collection of all time. Should you haven’t watched them, watch all of them. (Should you solely watch one, watch this one on Edgar Wright. Or this one on David Fincher. Or this one on the sound of Marvel films. Simply watch all of them!) So when the channel dropped its first video in seven years — a brief trailer for a brand new restricted collection and quick movie — I instantly began refreshing the web page each 10 minutes and rewatching each single factor on the channel another time. It’s like going to movie faculty at warp velocity, and I can’t suggest it extremely sufficient. Chairs, y’all! Chairs!