The new iPad Pro looks like a winner

Hello. Welcome to installer #37.

This week we wrote about iPads and LinkedIn games, read about car shows, typewriters and treasure hunters, watched All in L.A. and Sugar, and looked for reasons to buy Jerry Saltz’s new Yeti French press. I followed almost all of my favorite Instagram accounts, tried Capacities and Heptabase for taking notes, Plinky for saving links, and played a lot with Blind Drive.

As well as an impressive new iPad, a smart hub for the smart home, Twitter documentaries worth watching this weekend, sci-fi shows worth watching, cheap streaming consoles, and more. Let’s get started.

The Blob.
The new iPad Pro. The new iPad Pro is the most impressive device I’ve seen in a while. It’s so thin and light, and the OLED screen….. Gorgeous. The price is ridiculously high and the main problem with the iPad is still software, but that’s how tablets are made.
Animal Well Our friends at Polygon called it “one of the most original games of the last decade,” which is certainly high praise. The consensus is that it’s quirky, surprising, sometimes frustrating, very clever, and incredibly addictive. Even the trailer is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. (I’ve gotten a lot of recommendations for this movie this week. Thanks to everyone who sent them in).
Final Cut Camera, which was only mentioned in passing at Apple’s event this week, but is a big deal. It’s the first professional-grade camera app for iPhone and iPad, offering plenty of manual control and editing features. It’s exactly what many creatives have been looking for. No word yet on when it will be available, but we’re looking forward to it.
Aqara Hub M3. The only way to manage a smart home is to ensure that the device supports as many assistants, protocols and platforms as possible. any smart home device with a device that supports Matter.
The Battle of Clipboard Managers I don’t think I’ve ever linked to a Reddit thread, but check it out here: a long discussion of why clipboard managers are a useful tool, and some good options to choose from. (I agree with those who like Raycast, but there are tons of options and ideas here.)
Proton Pass. My number one piece of technology advice at the moment is that everyone needs a password manager. I’m a longtime fan of 1Password, but the Proton app is starting to look appealing. This week it added a new security threat monitoring tool in addition to its existing email hiding and sharing features.
Onn 4K Pro. Basically all streaming set-top boxes are ad-filled, slow, and bad; this Google TV set-top box from Walmart is at least reasonably priced, supports voice control and all the features you need, and is a smart speaker that This works. The customizable buttons are nice, too.
Dark Matter I’ve enjoyed most of the Blake Crouch science fiction books I’ve read, so I have high hopes for this Apple TV Plus series about life in a parallel universe. By the way, the Apple TV Plus. does very well indeed with science fiction.
A Wordle archive with over 1,000 days of Wordle available for replay and replay (because, let’s be honest, who’s going to remember Wordle from three weeks ago?) I don’t have access to the archive yet, but I intend to play through to the end as soon as the archive becomes available.
Black Twitter: a people’s history. Based on the very enjoyable Wired series, this three-part Hulu movie delves into how black Twitter dominates social media and recounts the internet’s experience of major events over the past decade. Screen share
The Verge’s new senior artificial intelligence reporter Kylie Robison recently tweeted a video of an old iPhone, a device that looked like the perfect time capsule. It had about 90,000 games on it, including one she was 100 percent sure was a scam. And the iPod logo on her docking station made me feel a lot of things. Those were good days.

About eight minutes after she became a Verge employee, I texted Kylie in Slack.

Sadly, she said she had tamed the homescreen chaos before she joined the company. Now she swears she can’t even find a screenshot of her old home screen. Indeed, Kylie. Anyway, here’s a bit of info about Kylie’s new functional home screen, as well as what apps she uses and why.

Cell phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Wallpaper: black screen because it would be too noisy otherwise. (There are about 20 photos rotating on the lock screen).

Apps: Apple Maps, Notes, Spotify, Messages, FaceTime, Safari, Phone.

I’m forgetful, so I need the Calendar and Weather apps to be in front of me when I unlock the phone. For listening to music and podcasts, I use Spotify.

Work is life itself, so all of these apps are also in front of me (Signal, Google Drive, Okta).

I organized my phone screen right before I started work because 1) I had time and 2) I knew I had to show it to David. Now all the apps are sorted into folders, but I used to use the search bar to find apps, which left me completely free. So imagine 25 random apps filling every page: like Pegasus for an international flight I booked, or a recipe for stuffed peppers.

I also asked Kylie to share some of the things she’s passionate about at the moment. Here’s what she shared with me:

Stardew Valley has taken over my life in between jobs.
I started going through 3 Body Problem because of the old installer, I also love Fallout and need more episodes.
My serious guilty pleasure is Love Island UK, and I watch the latest season during my breaks.
Crowdsourcing.
That’s what the Installer community is up to this week. We’d love to know what you’re into at the moment – tell us what you recommend at [email protected] or on Signal (@davidpierce.11). You’ll find even more recommendations in our response to this post on Threads.

Spotify’s recommendation algorithm and music channels always seemed terrible to me. I finally gave up and tried Pandora again, and I’m shocked that Pandora’s recommendation algorithm/stations are so much better (at least for me) than Spotify’s that it becomes culturally unknown. I can’t speak for others, but if anyone else has similar frustrations with Spotify playlists, I highly recommend Pandora as an option.” – Will.

“Anything that comes out on Netflix Is a Joke Fest gets a 10/10.” – Mike

“The Mantella mod for Skyrim (and Fallout 4), which is more of a collection of mods + apps than a single mod, giving (mostly) every NPC their own life and story. It’s like suddenly being able to join in on a fun game of Woody or Buzz.” – Jonathan

“There’s a new feature in the Snipd podcast app (the main benefit of which is artificial intelligence for transcribing podcasts and the ability to easily capture, manage, and export snippets of text from podcasts) that displays the names, bios, and photos of podcast guests, allowing you to browse the same guests. You can search for other podcasts or even follow a specific guest. Very cool. – Andy.

“I recently bought a new Kindle and am trying to figure out how to get news. My current plan is to use Omnivore as my bookmarking app and synchronize it with this great community tool that converts bookmarks into Kindle-friendly websites.” – David

‘Turtles all the way down. A great depiction of OCD. – Third.

“With all the talk of iOS Delta, I recently purchased a Miyoo Mini Plus and am now hooked. It’s customizable, it’s the perfect size, and as an older person who doesn’t like Fortnite, PUBG, or a huge amount of online gaming, it’s great to play some of the ‘legally obtained’ games I played as a kid.” – Benjamin.

Rusty’s Retirement is a great, almost idle farm simulator that you can play under or next to your monitor on Mac or Windows. While you’re working or doing other things, Rusty just runs his little errands. Rock. Watch him go.” – Brandon.

“Last week Nicholas talked about YACReader and asked about other great DRM-free comic book reading apps. After much searching on my own, I settled on Panels for iPad. Great Apple-native UI, well-designed features, decent performance. The free version supports local libraries, but to realize its full potential, the Pro version (sub or lifetime) supports iCloud, so you can store all your comics in iCloud Drive, manage your files via Mac and only. You can download them.” Perfect for budget iPads with limited storage. – Diogo.