The AI apps are coming for your PC

Plus, in this week’s Installer: New action cameras, new Android weather apps, Coachella week two, and much more.

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This week, I’ve been reading about restaurant bread and GLP-1s and Lenny Rachitsky and Artemis II fashion , watching the new boy band doc because I will always watch a boy band doc, also watching every clip I can find from Justin Bieber’s Coachella set, filling the Schitt’s Creek -shaped hole in my heart with Big Mistakes , getting increasingly excited about The Mandalorian and Grogu , and watering my new lawn so it doesn’t die.

Please don’t die, lawn.

You were so expensive.

I also have for you a couple of new AI apps to install on your computer, new action cameras worth planning a trip around, a new sci-fi action game to play, and much more.

Oh, and a reminder: Send me the thing you made!

We’re doing self-promotion week in Installer (probably next week but maybe the week after), and either way I want to hear about the things you’ve been making, building, coding, creating, whatever-ing that you think the Installerverse might like.

I’ve already heard from SO MANY of you, and it rules — keep the good stuff coming!

Let’s dig in.

I’ve been a fan of Maria Popova ’s work for… about as long as I can remember.

Maria runs a site called The Marginalian , which I started following back when it was called Brain Pickings ; under both names the site has been a fountain of stuff to read, with surprising and smart ideas about just about everything.

I spend a lot of time reading, and on the internet, and I can’t think of anyone who shows me more stuff I never would have found otherwise.

The phone: iPhone 16 – still too large for me, but I had to grudgingly resign to it after my last 13 mini gave up Moore’s ghost.

The wallpaper: Spring moonrise behind leafing maple in the forest where I live much of the year.

The apps: Evernote, Phone, Safari.

( Blank Spaces is the app that turns the icons to text.)
The usual life-management tools (calendar, connection, climate) plus Evernote, which I have been using since 2003 and which is by now an Alexandria of meticulously organized information that just about runs my life.

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week.

I want to know what you’re into right now as well!

Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.

For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky .

“ Becca Farsace recommended the OhSnap Mcon on her channel recently and I picked one up.

It’s super slick and works great with the Delta emulator so far.

I got Goldeneye running just fine with it after a little tuning.” — Ian
“Really been enjoying Plain Text Sports to follow the start of baseball season.

Loads fast, has everything I want with none of the ESPN cruft” — Rich
“I’ve almost finished reading Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I’m obsessed: equal amounts of humor and existential dread.

It’s very silly, very thoughtful, and frankly a very Verge -y take on technology.” — Olof
“YouTube has been my recent go-to for surprisingly good short films that you would probably never hear about or would probably get lost in the Hollywood machine.

For instance, this one called Aborted was amazing and there are more like it out there.” — Steve
“I bought a MacBook Air a few weeks ago after looking at the Neo and getting fed up by Windows, and I bought a few helper apps to fix small annoyances I had with the notch and Spotlight.

There are a lot of good notch applications but I bought Alcove — having the notch show me when I raise and lower volume makes the giant black bar in the middle of my screen feel slightly less useless somehow.

I’ve also been using TinyStart , which is really
fast and nice!

These two helper apps have made using the Mac as my main computer feel much nicer than it did the last time I tried.” — Iris
”My passion for discovering TTRPGs and learning about game design has led me into a deep dive on the Youtube channel Knights of Last Call .

Long live-streams and VODs and a super active community have opened my eyes to even more of what is possible in TTRPGs.” — Simeon
“Season 3 of Shrinking on Apple TV just ended on such a powerful note.

The ensemble cast just keeps bringing it and the writing realistically takes on all kinds of human problems we all deal with or know about.

A+” — Aaron
“I find SO MANY great book recommendations thanks to The Big Idea feature on John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever !” — Steve
I am constantly on the lookout for a way to make my bad habits a little better, without making my life worse in the process.

This is a perfect one.

The Skittles equivalent are called “Giggles,” which is awful, but they’re delicious.

So I’ll allow it.

I’m gonna go get some right now.

This is the title for the native ad