One of the best apps and techniques for monitoring motion pictures, music, books, and extra

Hello, pals! Welcome to Installer No. 10, your information to one of the best and Verge-iest stuff on the planet. (For those who’re new right here, hooray! I’m so completely happy you’re right here, and in addition, you possibly can atone for all of the previous editions on the Installer homepage.) We made it by means of 10 weeks! It’s been so enjoyable to make this each week and to speak to you all concerning the cool stuff you’re into. Thanks for being a part of the Installerverse (we’re gonna make {that a} factor, it’s gonna occur), and as all the time, inform me all the things you assume we will do to make it higher!

This week, I’ve been studying about Marvel’s plan to repair its TV exhibits and all the wild testimony from the Sam Bankman-Fried trial, making numerous deranged artwork in the improved Bing Chat, watching the David Beckham documentary and debating many new hairstyles, asking all the teenagers in the event that they truly love LinkedIn, and blocking out my weekend to see the Eras Tour film as many instances as doable. 

This week, I even have for you a brand new flip cellphone, a giant Roblox launch, a brand new messaging app, some sneaky browser hacks, and oh so some ways to maintain monitor of all of your media. And a deal on some actually rad Verge merch!

As all the time, one of the best a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What do you need to know extra about? What superior methods have you learnt that everybody else ought to? What app ought to everybody be utilizing? Inform me all the things: installer@theverge.com. And if you wish to get each version in your inbox a day early, you possibly can subscribe right here.

This week’s a very enjoyable one. Let’s get into it.

The Drop

Omnivore. Among the finest (and free and open-source) read-later apps bought a bunch of updates this week — higher highlighting, higher text-to-speech — however I’m actually into the upgraded browser extension, which makes organizing a lot simpler. I have a tendency to avoid wasting a billion issues after which by no means discover them once more, so a superb tags system is a game-changer.The Verge’s dbrand collab. Sure, that is brazen self-promotion, however I simply bought the pores and skin I ordered, and truthfully, it seems superior. We labored with dbrand on cellphone circumstances, skins, chargers, and extra. And only for this weekend, only for us within the Installerverse (I instructed you we’re making this occur), in case you use the code INSTALLER, you’ll get 15 % off all the things dbrand sells.How Do We Repair It? “The Polarization Sequence.” I’m new to this podcast however have been having fun with the three-episode arc on the present damaged state of American politics, how we bought right here, and the place we go subsequent. I took a very massive variety of notes on the episode about whether or not social media is accountable.House OS. The concept is tremendous compelling: a private, non-public laptop within the cloud that’s fully yours and never topic to the whims of app suppliers and social platforms. The truth of “a non-public factor within the cloud” is far more difficult, however the crew behind House OS has some actually fascinating concepts about the way it ought to all work.Large Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul. A 3-episode dive into the spectacular rise and brutal fall of the most important title in e-cigs. You may see bits of all the things from Juicero to Theranos and WeWork on this story, and the doc tells it effectively. (Honest warning: I used to be interviewed for this, and I’m in it a bit, however you possibly can simply fast-forward previous these bits.)The Motorola Razr. I believe flip telephones are the way forward for telephones. I actually do. And so I’m psyched to see Motorola exhibiting up with a flip cellphone designed to handle your relationship together with your cellphone, and most significantly, it’s $699.99 — lots cheaper than different flip telephones we’ve seen. (I’m even seeing it on sale for $599.99 proper now.) Yeah, I want it had an even bigger outer display screen, however it’s good to have choices. Roblox for PlayStation. A protracted-overdue launch, in case you ask me, however nonetheless a giant deal, particularly as Roblox tries to develop into a platform for all ages and all makes use of. Overlook what Meta’s constructing; Roblox is the corporate most attempting to make the metaverse occur.The Fall of the Home of Usher. Mike Flanagan’s horror exhibits have been a Netflix staple in recent times, and his newest (and possibly final) feels like a becoming finale: actually bonkers however finally plenty of enjoyable. And bonus: loads of critiques of contemporary tech-forward life.ActivityPub for WordPress. This can be a enormous deal: it means anybody with a web site on WordPress.com, which is an terrible lot of individuals, can now routinely syndicate their stuff to Mastodon, Pixelfed, and the remainder of the fediverse. I’m all in on the open net way forward for social, and it is a large step in that route.Lightroom Extremely HDR. That is the great sort of HDR, the sort that really makes your images crisper and extra lifelike, and now Lightroom’s Android app can work with it natively in your cellphone. For now, Extremely HDR is only for Pixel telephones, however generally, Lightroom is a wonderful app and an excellent step up out of your typical smartphone modifying app. (Additionally, take a look at all of the wild AI stuff Adobe confirmed off at Max this week. I do know we discuss an excessive amount of about “what is a photograph,” however severely. All the pieces’s totally different now.)

Group mission

Final week, I believed I’d strive one thing I’ve been desirous to do for some time: see if we, as the entire Installerverse (it’s HAPPENING), might all work collectively to determine the identical factor. So I requested, what do you utilize to trace all of the stuff you need to learn, watch, and take heed to?

Oh, boy, did you all come by means of. Thanks a lot to everybody who emailed and texted and DMed! I bought plenty of nice app suggestions, a bunch of actually wild hacky techniques, some severely elaborate spreadsheeting, and way more. So right here, as finest as I can summarize it multi functional place, is how the entire Installer neighborhood does its media monitoring.

The general favourite. Sequel was by far the most-recommended app in my inbox this week. It’s sadly just for Apple gadgets, however of us love its design, the truth that it will probably monitor mainly every kind of media, its notifications for brand new stuff, the additional information it provides, and extra. Oh, and excellent news: Romain Lefebvre, who makes Sequel, tells me model 2.1 is coming quickly with much more stuff, and you may get within the TestFlight beta proper now.The all-in-one apps. Couch was most likely the second hottest suggestion. All people additionally appears to like the design of Trakt, Play is a nifty up-and-comer, and Cronica has some followers, too.The media-specific apps. For motion pictures, numerous individuals beneficial Reelgood and JustWatch, and there was plenty of love for Letterboxd as effectively. For TV exhibits, Hobi appears to be a favourite, and SeriesGuide and TV Membership each got here up a couple of instances, too. For e-book consumption, Goodreads appears to be the go-to, however StoryGraph bought some love as effectively. For monitoring music, MusicHarbor and MusicBox appeared to be the alternatives, although there are some Final.fm diehards on the market, too. For video video games, GameTrack was actually the one one I heard about! Drop them in a hyperlink bucket. I heard from a couple of individuals who use bookmarking instruments like Raindrop, into which you’ll simply drop IMDb or YouTube or Amazon hyperlinks. Others used Instapaper and Pocket for saving hyperlinks.Make them duties. A bunch of you’re repurposing to-do listing apps like Issues, Todoist, and Microsoft To Do as methods to trace these items — some have it in a giant “Stuff to Devour” listing; others have it separated by media sort. One upside of that is that it may be collaborative: share a listing with a companion or roommate, and all people can add to it simply.Go to the supply. I heard from of us who maintain their to-watch listing in IMDb, their procuring listing of their Amazon account, their podcast suggestions in Overcast, and their music queue of their Spotify library. The purpose, it appears, is simply to dump all the things the place it’ll find yourself anyway.Simply maintain a listing. Notion; Apple Notes; Evernote; Anytype; Bear; Obsidian; Capacities; Google Preserve; OneNote; heaps and many others. So a lot of you stated one of the best factor to do is simply write all the things down someplace — ideally, someplace you’ll discover it once more — and be accomplished with it.

A number of different particular apps that individuals actually preferred: Mela for monitoring recipes; Copilot for monitoring funds; Discogs for managing bodily music; Habitica for monitoring habits.

And a particular shoutout to essentially the most spectacular system I heard about this week, from somebody who requested to be recognized solely as Stealth1248, which I’m simply going to cite in its entirety:

“I’ve regarded into a number of the collector apps, however they’re costly and look like plenty of work. The enjoyment of an Excel spreadsheet is that it’s tremendous straightforward to change to include no matter sort of info I need. I can type issues, categorize them, maintain monitor of if I already personal them or not, and so on.

“I additionally arrange a pair Microsoft Kinds so as to add issues to them. The rationale for that’s 2-fold. 1: Excel on cellular (whereas doable) is absolutely arduous to work with. Kinds modify much better to a small vertical display screen. You may arrange free fill solutions, multi choose questions, fields that require dates/instances/numbers, and make sure questions obligatory (so I don’t overlook to fill out a sure discipline of information) 2: You may export the outcomes from Kinds as rows in an Excel doc, so this makes it straightforward so as to add them to the principle spreadsheet when I’ve time to sit down down on an actual (aka massive with a horizontal display screen) laptop. Every query turns into a column of the spreadsheet and every full survey response turns into a row.”

Right here’s what the ensuing spreadsheet seems like:

I like it. I’d by no means handle to maintain it updated, however I like it. Thanks once more to everybody who wrote in with suggestions and concepts, we’ll do one thing like this once more actually quickly!

Display screen share

Each occasionally, I wish to textual content Casey Newton simply to see which note-taking app he’s utilizing — as a result of he appears to vary his thoughts nearly as typically as I do and is simply as prepared to throw his life and hopes and desires into something that may assist him perform a little extra a little bit extra simply. And truthfully, identical. Casey will get it.

However however, Casey can be one of the considerate web customers I do know. For those who’ve learn his glorious Platformer e-newsletter or heard the pleasant Exhausting Fork podcast, you recognize he’s deeply educated about how and why tech influences us. So I used to be curious to see what apps he makes use of, the place they stay, and the way he thinks about his cellphone’s job in his life.

Right here’s Casey’s homescreen (two of them, truly!), plus some information on the apps he makes use of and why:

The cellphone: iPhone 15 Professional.

The wallpaper: “The system wallpaper that exhibits you the place on earth you’re. I don’t assume it has a reputation.”

The apps: Todoist, Barry’s (helps you to e-book Barry’s lessons on the go, or much more importantly, cancel them while you’re hungover), Clock, Cron (truly the extra I take a look at Cron, the extra I miss Fantastical. What am I doing to myself right here?), Stripe, Pocket, Messenger, Google, Google Maps, App Retailer, Settings, Overcast, Spotify, Telephone, 1Password, Threads (Threads has felt way more energetic over the previous week, and I mainly assume it’s three or 4 large releases away from reaching escape velocity), ChatGPT, Messages, Gmail, Bear, Safari, Chrome, Darkish Sky (I’ll by no means delete this app icon as a result of it jogs my memory of what we misplaced. Valar morghulis), Day One, Holedown (it’s 400 years previous, isn’t up to date, and might fill completely any period of time between 10 seconds and 90 minutes), Grindr, Mem, Ivory, Artifact, Poe, Bluesky, Lutron, Amie, Capacities (my new favourite note-taking app, and in case you’re out there for a spot to do your private data administration, you need to completely test it out), Epik, and Bonk.

I additionally requested Casey to share a couple of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he stated:

Artifact. This little AI newsreading app from the Instagram co-founders is transport new options quicker than any product on the patron web. I more and more uncover information there that I put in Platformer, and I all the time discover one thing fascinating that I haven’t seen earlier than. I’m not completely positive the place it’s going, however I do know Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have enormous plans for it, and I’m having fun with being alongside for the trip. One cool function is that in case you’re a author, they ship you push notifications when different individuals hyperlink to your tales. Which is all the time enjoyable to see. Bonk. Bonk is one of the best new social community. You add pals after which “bonk” them, and each time you bonk, they get a separate notification telling them. So you possibly can rapidly take over somebody’s total cellphone together with your horrible notifications, and each time you bonk, you get haptic suggestions, and the Bonk app itself is taken over by the phrase Bonk. One of the best function (apart from each different function) is that there’s a leaderboard that tells you which ones of your folks has bonked essentially the most over the previous few days. The funniest function is that the app, which continues to be in beta, requires iOS 17 for causes identified solely to the developer and to God. It additionally has one of the best URL for an app I’ve personally ever seen: bonkbonkbonk.app.ChatGPT. A mistake I made this yr as a tech reporter was not instantly subscribing to ChatGPT Plus when GPT-4 grew to become obtainable. It seems that in case you’re solely utilizing 3.5, you actually don’t know what’s about to occur to all of us. GPT-4 makes many fewer errors and is healthier in each means at serving to you assume by means of topics or analyze textual content than its predecessor. I assigned the voice-operated model of it to the Motion Button on my new iPhone 15 Professional, so now I can discuss to ChatGPT on the press of a button. It seems like getting a glimpse of the longer term.

Crowdsourced

Right here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as effectively! E-mail installer@theverge.com together with your suggestions for something and all the things, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. And for far more nice suggestions than I might embrace right here, take a look at this Threads thread.

“Dex. It’s a ‘private rolodex’ app: it helps you to take notes about individuals in your life, set reminders to comply with up, maintain monitor of birthdays, and sync with Gmail / LinkedIn. For a freelancer, my reminiscence abilities go away a lot to be desired. It helps me bear in mind particulars about conversations with individuals the subsequent time we discuss — each professionally and socially.” – Ryan

“Two current glorious sequence, each on Apple TV Plus: Silo and Basis.” – Dennis

“I take advantage of a number of browsers for various issues, then I take advantage of BrowserFairy to routinely route apps and websites to particular browsers. For my newsletters and associated issues to learn, I’ve BrowserFairy open Microsoft Edge. In Edge, I sync between gadgets, group tabs, and all the conventional built-in-browser issues Edge brings, particularly vertical tabs (which is like Safari reader, simply so significantly better).” – Brent

“Making a wise lamp utilizing a Shelly RGBW and a customized firmware mod to get it to work with Apple Residence. In all probability an enormous house community safety danger, however it works. Additionally, an excessive amount of Stardew Valley on Apple Arcade.” – Timothy

“After years of attempting to heat as much as GTD apps, with little success, I lastly tried Agenda, and it actually works for me. I’m not utilizing it for note-taking (I’ve Apple Notes, Google Preserve, and Obsidian for that). However the best way it handles triaging to-dos and integrates together with your calendar and Apple Reminders is absolutely slick. It’s loaded with options, seems stunning, is consistently being up to date, and has a singular paid tier you can get by way of subscription or a one-time cost. However the free model is so good, most individuals won’t ever have to pay. Lastly, I’m GTD!” – David

“Simply bought Patrick Stewart’s new memoir, and I’m tremendous excited to learn it! I additionally bought to see him throughout his e-book tour, which was superb.” – Aaron

“Oh my god, I simply bought a Nitro Deck from CKRD, and it’s completely my new favourite online game gadget. It’s a deck for the Swap, with Corridor-effect joysticks, programmable rear bumpers, and a pleasant huge grip for big-handed of us like me that discover the Pleasure-Cons cramped. I ordered the unit in GameCube purple and might verify it’s as righteous in particular person because it seems on the shop.” – Nick

“The best factor I’ve seen lately, I don’t know methods to share with anybody. It’s a film known as Hiya Dankness that seamlessly cuts collectively all the things from Napoleon Dynamite and Wayne’s World to Pen15 and RoboCop to create weird cross-world interactions and make a satirical commentary on the absurdity of the post-Trump political panorama. However as a result of it’s mainly a pirated work, I believe you possibly can solely see it at movie festivals and particular screenings. Oh, and it has a bonkers trailer.” – Thomas

“I used iTunes completely till about 2018, and although it was dangerous software program by the top, it did provide a music nerd plenty of issues that Spotify and a number of the others don’t. There’s an iOS app known as Marvis, which has a professional model that gives a lot of these options. The rub is that it solely works with Apple Music, however I’ve discovered that, for previous iTunes holdouts, this isn’t a lot of an issue.” – John

Signing off

A number of days in the past, on The Vergecast, I discussed that top-of-the-line cellphone equipment I’ve ever purchased is a very lengthy — mine is 10 toes — charging cable. I’ve one subsequent to my sofa and one other subsequent to my mattress, and y’all, the liberty that comes from not having to lean over to be nearer to my shops!

However then, I bought an e mail from Eric telling me how unsuitable I used to be. Right here’s what Eric stated: “I used to work at Apple retail, and when individuals would are available in search of longer charging cables, they’d balk on the value — longer Lightning (on the time) cables have been (are?) costly! — and I might all the time suggest going to Goal and common extension cables. Far more choices (colours, lengths, thicknesses, wire types, and so on…) and sometimes means cheaper. Can’t inform you what number of of us got here again in simply to say thanks for the concept, simply saved them $25. All this to say: David! Don’t purchase a 10-foot Apple USB cable, purchase an superior 12-foot extension cable as an alternative.”

I’ve accomplished some trying, and Eric’s not unsuitable. There are some pretty, cheap extension cables on the market (I searched “braided extension cable” and located numerous good ones), they usually’re far more multifaceted than simply having one lengthy USB charger. Apparently, I’m going to redo all my charging stations once more.