Plus, in this week’s Installer: Dungeon Crawler Carl is back, an underwater adventure game, smart glasses, and much more. Welcome to Installer No. 128, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. This week, I’ve been reading about David Attenborough, AI trainers, and the Subway Takes guy, listening to Productivity FM’s mixes, writing my vibe-coding opus, testing Poppy AI assistant, tracking my steps with the new Fitbit Air, buying summer reading list books, watching Maxinomics videos, enjoying my all-time Spotify Wrapped playlist, and switching browsers. I also have for you some Mac utilities, a book in the Installerverse series, a fediverse tool, and much more. Let’s dive in.
Your ideas and tips are the best part of Installer. What are you into this week? Tell me at [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.
1. Mole. This Mac app helps locate huge files, unneeded apps, and more without overcharging ($9 recommended).
2. A Parade of Horribles. The eighth book in Dungeon Crawler Carl’s series, highly anticipated.
3. The Twelve South PowerClip. A $40 dongle for emergency phone battery support, cleverly doubling as a USB-C cable.
4. Bartender Pro. A $15/year Mac app for menu bar organization with audio controls, calendar, and more.
5. Subnautica 2. An underwater adventure game topping Steam charts despite early access bugs.
6. Indigo. A combined Bluesky and Mastodon app offering a unified timeline.
7. “We aren’t ready for Meta glasses.” A Christophe video on the cultural state of smart glasses.
8. Snapseed 4.0. Google’s new photo-editing app with a simple yet feature-rich design.
9. The Punisher: One Last Kill. A Disney Plus special, despite viral controversies, it delivers a gritty superhero story.
Screen share: Joanna Stern becomes the first repeat guest in Installer history with her book “I Am Not a Robot,” focusing on AI’s practicality.
Joanna Stern’s AI setup: She uses Claude and ChatGPT for multi-step tasks, AI organizing her BookBots for writing projects, and a vibe-coded pin promotion for her book. After a year of AI experimentation, ChatGPT in the car and Meta AI in her Ray-Bans have become staples.
She recommends podcasts she’s on and illustrates the time-consuming nature of book writing, asking listeners for forgiveness for occupying their feeds but offers a remedy by purchasing her book.
Crowdsourced: The Installer community shares what they’re into this week.
– Mars First Logistics: Build and deliver objects on Mars.
– Trash Truck: Sweet, low-key entertainment enjoyable for kids and adults.
– Documenting D&D campaigns with NotebookLM.
– Enjoying Devil May Cry 5 and its Netflix series.
– Exploring the website maker Blento.
– Reading Mason & Dixon.
– Watching Widow’s Bay on Apple TV.
– Playing Graveyard Keeper.
– Listening to the audiobook Apple: The First 50 Years.
Signing off: A half-vacation week allowed for home office reorganization, introducing an Anker power strip and long USB-C cables for better efficiency.
See you next week!