Hello, associates! Welcome to Installer No. 7, your information to the most effective and Verge-iest stuff on this planet. (For those who’re new right here, initially, hello, whats up, welcome, and second of all, you may learn all of the previous editions at the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been studying about the AI writing lives of actual writers, rewatching the John Wick films to organize for The Continental, searching for StandBy-capable iPhone docks, getting again into VR train with Supernatural boxing, and actually, actually, actually hoping Microsoft’s controller-first imaginative and prescient for the way forward for gaming comes true quickly.

I even have for you a brand new super-slick Home windows laptop computer, two crypto-related podcasts you must hear, a motive to attempt Bard once more, OpenAI’s new image-making software, a sensible house platform to attempt, and the Tesla of child displays.

Oh, and honest warning: this week’s fairly Apple-heavy. However it’s New Apple Software program Improve Week, so there’s only a lot to undergo. We’ll do the identical for Android 14 in a few weeks, too, I think, so ship me all of your favourite Android stuff! And Meta Join is subsequent week, so possibly we’ll get bizarre with some VR stuff, too. Anyway, let’s get to it.

(As all the time, the most effective a part of Installer is your concepts and ideas. What do you wish 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 pieces: installer@theverge.com. And if you wish to get each concern of Installer a day early in your electronic mail inbox you may subscribe right here.)

• Orion. A brand new iPad app that allows you to use it like an HDMI show, so long as you have got a seize card. (They’re low cost.) Meaning your iPad could be an exterior display to your recreation system, your Raspberry Pi, mainly something you would plug right into a TV or monitor. And for $5, you get a bunch of enjoyable filters and adjustment instruments. (A lot of individuals really useful this one — because of all who despatched it in!)
• Microsoft’s Floor Laptop computer Studio 2. That is the Home windows MacBook Professional, and I imply that in one of the best ways. The primary-gen Laptop computer Studio is my day by day driver Home windows PC, and I really like the look, the funky display, all the pieces about it besides the processor and the battery life. Microsoft appears to have fastened each after which some. I’m psyched about this factor, even when it does begin at $1,999.
• “Based mostly on a real story.” The film Dumb Cash sounds prefer it’s not significantly correct however nonetheless a variety of enjoyable, however I’m nonetheless interested by this Planet Cash episode that dove into the story of how the GameStop saga changed into a bidding battle and a race in Hollywood to make the primary film concerning the diamond-hands crowd. Hollywood’s a bizarre place, y’all. (Facet word: final week’s episode, about the Axie Infinity hack, was additionally actually good.)
• Amazon’s Echo Hub. One $179.99 display, which you’ll be able to mount in your wall or go away in a dock on a desk, that controls all of your good house stuff. (A minimum of all of your Echo-capable stuff, anyway, which is a fairly large record.) I’m in on the good house however out on controlling all the pieces with voice instructions, and this appears like a strong all-in-one controller.
• Vulture’s Films Fantasy League. I’m a sucker for any type of fantasy league, so, in fact, I’m all in on this one from our associates at Vulture: you choose a bunch of 2023 films, and get factors for a way they carry out in theaters and at awards exhibits. I’m taking The Killer and Paw Patrol all the way in which to the highest. Signups shut this week, so get in now!
• DALL-E 3. OpenAI’s image-generation software appears to have gotten some massive upgrades, significantly in its means to combine with ChatGPT to enhance the prompts you give the software. (It’s simply chatbots on chatbots, y’all.) Proper now, your greatest wager to get DALL-E 3 might be via Bing Chat, the place it’s rolling out slowly — OpenAI says it gained’t be in ChatGPT till subsequent month. 
• YouTube Create. It’s deeply weird that it took YouTube this lengthy to make an truly helpful, mobile-first video software for creators. However hey: it’s within the Play Retailer now. In beta. And possibly not accessible to everybody. However if you happen to’re a Shorts-making fiend, it’s nonetheless progress.
• Tally 2.0. Google Varieties is the worst, and everybody ought to cease utilizing it. The brand new model of Tally is far nicer: it appears so much (like, a lot) like Notion, and it’s fairly straightforward each to construct and share a type for accumulating actually any type of information from your mates or co-workers or whoever. And most of it’s free to make use of.
• Google Bard Extensions. Google’s AI chatbot bought a giant improve this week: now you can combine it with Gmail, Drive, YouTube, and different Google merchandise. Bard’s nonetheless dumb in a variety of methods, however I’ve discovered it surprisingly helpful for issues like “present me enjoyable movies concerning the Roman Empire” and “what was the affirmation quantity from my final Delta flight?”
• Whisper Notes. I’ve change into type of obsessive about voice-notes apps, largely as a result of I spend a variety of time strolling round pushing a stroller and wish a strategy to write down all of the issues I’ll in any other case overlook to do. Whisper, OpenAI’s speech-to-text system, is admittedly good, and this is without doubt one of the better-looking apps I’ve seen constructed with it. No cell app but, however that’s apparently coming.

I’ve been interested by this for some time now, and I’ve determined that interactive widgets are the most effective factor to occur to the iPhone and iPad since, like, cameras. I don’t know. Interactive widgets are superior! And with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 popping out this week, an enormous variety of Apple builders have launched new or upgraded apps with actually enjoyable widgets you may work together with proper out of your homescreen.

There are many good new apps to attempt — all people’s favourite Shortcuts guru Matthew Cassinelli rounded up 160, which ought to get you began — however I’ve been considering extra concerning the alternative ways you may method turning into a Widget Individual. As a result of if you happen to’re not already dwelling the widget life? It’s time. Listed below are a couple of methods to get began:

• Playback widgets. That is the one greatest and most universally helpful factor you are able to do: put a widget to your favourite music or podcasts app — many have already up to date, Spotify infuriatingly has not, and I feel Overcast’s widget is the most effective thus far — and you may play or pause your stuff out of your homescreen. Simple win.
• Checkbox widgets. Do you utilize a to-do record app? Use its widget to see and test off your duties all through the day! (I actually like the Issues widget, and the built-in Reminders app has a superb one, too.)
• Timer widgets. For those who’re the Pomodoro-tracker sort, you need to use Focus to shortly begin and cease your work periods. You should utilize Timelines to trace your time. Time’s Up is fairly good for simply setting and stopping timers of any type for any motive.
• Counter widgets. Interactive widgets make it so a lot simpler to trace absolutely anything. You should utilize a habit-tracking app like Gentler Streak or Streaks (which I’m lastly truly utilizing on daily basis), a single-purpose app like WaterMinder, or only a quantity counter like Tally to maintain monitor of absolutely anything.  
• Climate widgets. Now, as a substitute of simply seeing the temperature or one graph or no matter, apps like NOAA Climate Radar RainViewer (that identify!) allow you to faucet to modify from temperature to precipitation and extra, all on the homescreen. 

I may preserve going, however that’s a reasonably good begin. Give it some thought like this: something you do in your cellphone that’s simply “faucet the app, faucet a factor, shut the app” can and must be changed by an interactive widget. And at the very least for me, that’s much more of my cellphone utilization than I anticipated.

Oh, and a bonus: you may and completely ought to make your individual widgets! Widgetsmith is a superb app that simply bought a bunch of recent interactive options — you need to use it to make calendar widgets, climate widgets, photograph album widgets, exercise widgets, music widgets — virtually something you may consider. I additionally like Launcher, which helps you to make widgets to launch apps, name somebody, go to a webpage, and plenty extra — or virtually the rest. I’m a heavy person of each, and my cellphone is slowly turning into widgets all the way in which down.

Have you ever discovered an iOS 17 widget you like? Inform me about it! I’ll function some extra subsequent week.

Ben Springwater is the CEO of Matter, my favourite read-later app. (Matter simply launched a function referred to as “Readable Podcasts,” which makes it straightforward to transcribe and take notes on what you’re listening to — it’s actually cool.) He has additionally simply been within the product-making recreation for a very long time, so he’s a enjoyable man to speak to about what makes for nice software program.

I requested Ben to share his homescreen, plus a couple of issues he’s into proper now. I used to be type of hoping it could simply be 100 totally different beta variations of Matter, and I used to be, I’m sorry to say, largely disillusioned. However Ben’s homescreen additionally turned me on to a bunch of cool new apps! So I’ll take it.

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

The cellphone: iPhone 14 Professional Max

The wallpaper: I’m a proud new dad!

The apps: Safari, Perplexity.ai (higher than Google for a lot of queries), Calendar, Spotify, Untitled (lovely, minimalist podcast app by @rishmody, nonetheless in beta), Endel, Audible, Slack, Superhuman, TestFlight (I stay up for a brand new TestFlight Matter construct on daily basis at about 6PM), Figma, Notes, Mirror (excellent new notes app that strikes a pleasant steadiness between simplicity and energy), Artifact, Nanit (“Tesla of child displays” is how I’ve heard it described), WhatsApp, Discover My, Retro (it’s the Goldilocks photograph sharing app), Arc, Tide Information, Yoga, Health, Ranges (eye-opening! Has spurred me to vary how I eat), Cellphone, Apple Maps, Matter (my favourite and most-used app, each as a result of I construct it and since I “construct it for myself”).

I additionally requested Ben to share a couple of issues he’s into proper now. Right here’s what he got here again with:

• Wentworth Wood Jigsaw Puzzles. My spouse and I bought hooked on a latest household trip. Lovely puzzles. We simply purchased a brand new 1,000-piece-r.
• Grapefruit Spindrift. My dependancy. What can I say?
• Dwarkesh Podcast. I hearken to a variety of podcasts. Most are fairly well-known (Ezra, Tyler, Russ, Lex, Sam, and so on.). Dwarkesh’s is the most effective podcast that not many individuals learn about but.
• Saunas. Received one in my yard throughout covid, and it has been the most effective (materials) funding I’ve ever made. Nice strategy to spend time with associates. “If there are few banias, we reside in unity; but when there are too many, we’re lonely as a result of one doesn’t go to the opposite.” (Russian proverb)

Right here’s what the Installer neighborhood is into this week. I wish to know what you’re into proper now as nicely! E mail installer@theverge.com together with your suggestions for something and all the pieces, and we’ll function a few of our favorites right here each week. 

“As a fellow Arsenal fan, I really like FotMob — a service to test soccer (soccer) scores, stats, group sheets, participant information, play-by-plays, and so on. Polished and native-feeling apps for iPhone and iPad (which additionally works on Mac), with early help for brand spanking new APIs. They’ve had reside actions for nearly a yr and already help StandBy mode! I haven’t tried the Android or internet app, nevertheless it’s there — and your favourite groups and gamers sync between all of them.” — Erlend

“Blacklight shines a lightweight on the web sites you browse to see what monitoring applied sciences it could be utilizing. Is the positioning pretty clear, or does it appear to be a Jackson Pollock portray?” — Jason 

“Noticed your latest submit about tips on how to make your cellphone really feel like new, and I feel you missed one thing helpful that I did not too long ago. Took an extended pin (or a needle would do the identical) and eliminated a bunch of built-up junk from the Lightning charger port of my iPhone. It wasn’t charging nicely (usually not charging in any respect) and now fees once more like a dream. I additionally took the identical needle and ran it throughout the earpiece on the cellphone, which appeared to filter a bunch of gunk (sorry!) that had brought about the audio high quality to degrade. Appears like new now.” — PJ

“I discovered about VesselFinder not too long ago. Watching it makes me really feel like a God enjoying actual life as a metropolis builder.” — Sam

“I’m studying Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill, and it’s excellent.” — Creighton

“I’ve continued my descent into bliss / insanity with Dwelling Assistant; I changed a pair extra Wi-Fi units w/ Zigbee ones — and issues work higher, because of mesh networking! The Dwelling Assistant devs preserve cranking out updates, and it actually has modified my notion of what a sensible house could be.” — Cassidy

“Apple made a giant present of the ‘Double Faucet’ function at its announcement of Apple Watch Collection 9 / Extremely 2. I used to be able to commerce in my first-gen Extremely for that improve alone. However a superb good friend and fellow tech geek identified that present Apple Watches can get the identical function by enabling the AssistiveTouch > Hand Gestures choice below Accessibility on the Watch and choosing “Faucet” for the Double Pinch choice. Nice for clearing notifications off the watch with one hand!” — Kirk

“Season 2 of The Afterparty on Apple TV Plus was actually good. It’s type of like Knives Out however with much less emphasis on being intelligent.” — Ross

“Merlin Chicken ID. It’s enjoyable to have the ability to report a fowl track close by and be advised what it’s. The photograph ID can also be good, however I discover it arduous to get a superb pic typically. Professional tip: obtain the US and Canada Continental pack. It’s not a lot greater, and also you’re set if you happen to journey.” — Mike

“App within the Air is like your flight-saver app. It alerts you quick sufficient about cancellations and delays, typically even quicker than some airways can handle. The app additionally caters to the aviation geeks, preserving monitor of your journeys and carbon footprint. It has a premium model, however in case you are after stats, you get these totally free: miles flown, hours flown, nations visited, boarding passes, and the names of airways you’ve traveled with.” – Vivian

An excellent good friend, who labored within the music biz, used to all the time complain to me about what number of new artists had been making “Spotify Music.” This, he defined to me, was a brand new style: music meant to be listened to in playlists, within the background, and largely in small bits. He thought Spotify Music was inoffensive and boring, and the lyrics barely ever made sense as a result of they didn’t actually need to.

Ever since, I’ve been obsessive about Spotify Music. And there was a superb WSJ story this week digging into how Spotify — and actually streaming basically — is altering all the pieces from how artists receives a commission to the construction of songs themselves. PBS made a superb video about this a couple of years in the past, too. Verify them each out, and I promise you’ll begin listening to new music just a little in a different way. (And if you happen to encounter some actually spot-on Spotify Music, ship it my means!) It’s all concerning the algorithm, child.