It’s a dream week for tech docs

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Apple’s smart home gear, a tiny Xbox controller, a new Fitbit, and more.

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Apple’s smart home gear, a tiny Xbox controller, a new Fitbit, and more.

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 148, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you’re enjoying all your pumpkin-flavored everything, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .)

This week, I’ve been reading about Marc Andreessen and the future of math and Mike Tomlin and Citizens United , reminiscing about the heyday of MySpace , sending this article to everyone as an apology for my bad texting, listening to the Pet Shop Boys’ new Alan Turing album and Dwarkesh Patel’s thoughts on AI , barely keeping myself from preordering an iPhone Duo , asking a lot of questions about that “flying” Tesla Roadster , and endlessly shopping for tripods to hold my phone for social videos. I have thought way too much about tripods this week.

I also have for you a couple of huge new tech docs and a whole bunch of gadgets worth a look. Gadget season, baby! Let’s go.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / listening to / playing / throwing in the trunk this week? Tell me everything: [email protected] . And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer , forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here .)

I’ve been reading Kevin Roose ’s new book, The AGI Chronicles , this week, and I truly cannot recommend it enough. We sometimes make fun of Kevin for loving (and being loved by) AI too much, but this book is fabulously reported, has taught me a ton, and makes so many things about the AI industry make a lot more sense.

And Kevin’s not done! He and (friend of Installer ) Casey Newton are getting ready to launch their new show, Machine Gods , sometime next week. (If you were a Hard Fork fan, you’re gonna need to be listening to this one.) So I figured now was a good time to see how Kevin gets it all done — and whether he’s just Claude Code-d himself out of existence altogether. Have I even been texting with the real Kevin this week? WHO KNOWS.

Here’s Kevin’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro (barely works, battery life is a joke, storage is full, but I’m holding out until I can preorder the Duo and become a new man).

I’m a big dictation guy, I barely type anymore, and I use Superwhisper and Voice Memos for everything. I vibe-coded a Pocket replacement called Stash that is still a delight many months later.