Two new must-have Android apps

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 46, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you like silly gadgets, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been writing about Apple betas and AR gadgets, reading about Donald Glover and the scourge of meetings and what it takes to feed the Olympics, admiring Christian Selig’s keyboard layout, watching Hard Knocks and The Beekeeper, and trying (and failing) to perfect my blueberry muffin recipe.

I also have for you a couple of great iOS apps that are finally available on Android, a new way to play some classic Nintendo games, an expensive new camera, and stuff to watch this weekend both at home and in theaters.

This week’s a little heftier than usual, both because there’s a lot going on and because I’m getting ready to go on vacation. Installer will come as usual next week and then off for two weeks before we’re back on August 17th ready to rumble. So, just in case you’d otherwise run out of stuff to do, I figured I’d leave you with some extras. Let’s get into it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? 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.)

• Notion Calendar for Android. I still really hate the app icon, but other than that, this is one of the best-looking and generally sharpest calendar apps out there. It’s especially great if you’re also a Notion user, but even if not, I think it’s an upgrade on Google Cal.
• Claude for Android. Over and over the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing people talk about how much they like Claude 3.5 Sonnet — even more than they like ChatGPT. I like Claude’s app a lot, too, especially its ability to import and understand screenshots.
• The TinyPod. It’s a case for an Apple Watch that makes it look like an iPod, and even as I type that, it sounds totally ridiculous. But you better believe I will be buying this thing and seeing if it turns my Watch into the music-playing, message-sending dumbphone of my dreams.
• Wild Wild Space. We think of space as, like, a grand beautiful unknown. But in so many ways, it’s becoming just another place for companies to try and conquer. This HBO series (based on a great Ashlee Vance book) is a particularly epic — and somewhat terrifying? — startup story.
• UTM SE. I would’ve happily bet you $10 that Apple would never approve an app that just straight-up emulates a Windows computer. I’m glad to have lost that bet! UTM SE can do retro games, but it can also do all kinds of other stuff. (Just don’t expect it to, like, actually replace your computer.)
• EA Sports College Football 25. After 11 years, it’s back and apparently as good as ever. The story of this game is a hilariously perfect tale about the internet, capitalism, and fame, but ultimately, I’m just excited to finally turn my alma mater into the football juggernaut it very much is not.
• Overcast. A big update this week to one of the best podcast apps for Apple devices. Marco Arment, the developer, is right when he says it’s noticeably faster in almost every way, and Overcast does things like Smart Speed and volume enhancement better than anything else. 
• The Canon R5 Mark II. Photographers and camera nerds have been waiting for this one for a while, and with good reason. The R5 II is faster for photos, more functional for video, and has a new autofocus system that sounds pretty great. $4,300 ain’t cheap, but awesome cameras never are.
• Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition. A bunch of classic video games, chopped up and put back together into tiny new pieces all designed to be played at blisteringly fast speeds. Such a cool idea and a great new spin on some old faves.
• Skywalkers: A Love Story. I can’t get enough of those YouTube videos of people parkouring their way around skyscrapers and abandoned buildings, even if they do stress me out. This Netflix doc is a lot of that kind of stuff and a love story, all in one.
• Dyson’s OnTrac headphones. Glad to see Dyson go a little less, uh, Bane-ish with its second set of headphones. The OnTrac are super expensive — $500! — but look pretty good, and I’m rooting for anything going this hard on customization.
• Twisters. Here’s a weekend plan for you. This afternoon, watch Twister, which holds up shockingly well 28 years later. (The effects still rip, too.) Tonight, go see Twisters, which has gotten solid reviews and looks like exactly the kind of movie that should be seen in a huge, loud movie theater. Then, hit me up and tell me if you liked it. Sound like a plan?

Ryan Gilbert runs one of the newsletters I read every single week. It’s called Workspaces, and every week, it features some interesting person talking about how they work and how they’ve set up their desk to work for them. I am, uh, forever obsessed with desk setups and never tire of seeing how other people think about their spaces.

Homescreens are kinda like desk setups, I think, in that they reveal a lot about the person who created them. So, I asked Ryan to share his homescreen to see what I might learn from him — and what he’s learned from all those interviews.

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

The phone: iPhone 14 Pro.

The wallpaper: My wife and I during our engagement pictures. I like how subtle and distraction-free it is as a background with it mostly just being a light shade (light mode > dark mode for everything btw). 

The apps: X, Slack, Camera, Clock, Overcast, Weather, Google Maps, ESPN, Spotify, Notion, Peloton, USGA GHIN, Campsite, LinkedIn, Apple Sports, Messages, Gmail, Safari, Phone.

So, as you can tell, my homescreen is a bit unorganized. I actually like it that way. You’ll notice that Twitter is top left in prime real estate and outside of the “Social” cluster of apps in the bottom right. Fortunately or unfortunately (I’ll let you decide), Twitter is a big part of my day-to-day work, so I treat that as more of a work app vs. social. All of the apps in the “Social” cluster are the apps I use with friends — things like Snapchat or Instagram. You will also see random apps like Product Hunt and ESPN Fantasy Football being tossed in there. Not everything has to make sense.

I also have both ESPN and the new Apple Sports app on the homescreen. I’d love to move away from ESPN, as their app has become extremely bloated and slow, so I’ve been trying to force the Sports habit more and more. 

I love Overcast. It’s where I listen to all of my podcasts. I like to keep this separate from where I listen to music (Spotify). 

Gmail… I am not an inbox zero kind of guy.

I also asked Ryan to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:

• USGA GHIN: The app that has probably never been featured here before! It’s for keeping track of my golf scores and handicap. 
• I still play Wordle every morning. I like to think it gets my creative juices flowing, but really, it’s just a way to avoid checking email for an extra few minutes.
• My wife and I try to go hiking ~twice per week. We really like to spend as much time outside as possible during the summer. Being from Wisconsin, you need to enjoy it while you can!

Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email [email protected] 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 recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.

“Terrifying Questions is a great philosophy podcast by Futurama writer Eric Kaplan and professor Taylor Carman. Each week, they discuss a philosophical question. It’s smart, funny, and interesting but without being inaccessible. The first episode from a year ago about ChatGPT is a great place to start.” — Jonathan

“Fable! It has been great for me and got me into reading again!” — Ataya

“I feel a little late to the party but watching Scavengers Reign, which is on Netflix outside the US. Honestly one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time. Rarely does sci-fi feel this alien or unknown. Even if you don’t like sci-fi, watch it for the incredible music alone!” — Alex

“Star Trek Prodigy season two on Netflix has blown me away. Season one was good, but season two is one of the best seasons of Star Trek (so far).” — J

“I’m trying out Company of Heroes 3 on the PS5. Consoles get a bad rap for RTS games, but it’s only because porting playable controls takes more effort. Haven’t played enough to have an opinion on CoH3 yet, but EndWar and Halo Wars on the 360 were both great to control.” — Ian

“I can’t get over Omnivore’s text-to-speech article reader! I had started off using ElevenLabs’ Reader app to read articles to me, and though their voices are more realistic, I just looove the way Omnivore switches voices for a quoted passage. No idea when Omnivore made this update, but I’m obsessed!” — Roxxy

“Been really enjoying what AEW has been up to recently, definitely coming out of some creative doldrums. They have a storyline where Toni Storm is the champ playing a black-and-white movie star (literally her intro and promos are B&W). They’ve been doing an All About Eve thing with her protege Mariah May who just turned on her. And they just had a 59-minute match with Will Ospreay and MJF that was an amazing piece of storytelling. I’ll watch wrestling even when it’s mid, but this has been great!” — Richard

“Recently upgraded an old iPod Classic gifted to me by my GF’s dad! I put in a new backplate, faceplate, touch wheel, battery, and SD card expansion module for it. Joining the ‘single-purpose’ tech trend we’re on.” — Stefan

“Reading The Battle of the Beams, the story of the development of radar during WW2 and the countermeasures to it. Some incredible tales, really eye-opening.” — Peter

“Ordered a pair of Dayton Audio B40 speakers. They sound like $50, but like… a really good $50. Dayton’s B452 and 652 speakers were long-reigning champs of the ‘beginner audiophile,’ and it’s cool to see this update.” — Emmet

“I’ve been playing around with the Flow Minimalist Launcher. So far, it has led to me reading before bed instead of scrolling and, at least for now, prevented me from buying a Boox Palma.” — Zachary

A while back, when I was working on a story about a woodworking computer maker, I learned about the designer Tom Sachs’ concept of “Always Be Knolling.” Knolling is a really specific system that involves laying all your stuff out at specific angles, but I take the broader idea as: don’t make cleaning and organizing into A Thing, just always be doing it. I’ve been trying to adopt this recently, and it is awesome. When I’m on a phone call, I tidy up my desk. When I’m waiting for something to export, I tidy up my desk. A few seconds at a time, I barely even notice, and my workspace is cleaner than ever. Now I just have to figure out how to Always Be Knolling with, like, laundry and dishes. Then I’ll be unstoppable.