TechGadgetsStreamingIt\u2019s a dream week for tech docsPlus, in this week\u2019s Installer: Apple\u2019s smart home gear, a tiny Xbox controller, a new Fitbit, and more.Plus, in this week\u2019s Installer: Apple\u2019s smart home gear, a tiny Xbox controller, a new Fitbit, and more.by David PierceOct 17, 2026, 12:00 PM UTCShareGiftIf you buy something from a link, The Verge may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 148, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you\u2019re new here, welcome, hope you\u2019re enjoying all your pumpkin-flavored everything, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I\u2019ve 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\u2019 new Alan Turing album and Dwarkesh Patel\u2019s thoughts on AI, barely keeping myself from preordering an iPhone Duo, asking a lot of questions about that \u201cflying\u201d Tesla Roadster, and endlessly shopping for tripods to hold my phone for social videos.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n
Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)You Can See Everything. I can\u2019t remember the last time I was so excited about a documentary (especially a three-hour one). The pairing of Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder, the shocking level of access, the incredible meta-ness of the whole project.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be seeing this the first minute I can. Oh, and after you watch the doc, watch Josh Johnson\u2019s hourlong set on all things Elizabeth Holmes. Glorious.Musk. And here\u2019s four more hours of tech doc!<\/p>\n
The reviews here are also spectacular, and even if you\u2019ve been following the news the last decade or so, I suspect seeing it all in a row at once is going to be an experience.The Apple HomeView. I keep staring at the buy button on this new $299 home hub. I\u2019m not sure what I need it for, really \u2014 my very basic smart home is working just fine \u2014 but there\u2019s something almost old-school about the idea of this as a sort of family computer. I\u2019m certainly in the market for fewer reasons to look at my phone.The new Siri Remote.<\/p>\n
I cannot in good conscience recommend a $300 Apple TV, but I can totally tell you to drop $60 on the new Find My-enabled remote! I mean, wait until you lose your existing one first. But you will. These remotes are impossible.The Fairphone Fairbuds 2.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve come to like both Fairphone\u2019s minimalist aesthetic and its emphasis on repairability, and the fact that it gets both into a lighter, smaller, longer-lasting, cheaper-than-AirPods package is pretty exciting.The Xbox Nano Controller. Look at this little guy! A pocket-sized game controller comes in handy more often than you think (makes the waiting room a lot more fun), and this one has all the buttons you\u2019d expect for Xbox and other games. If the battery life is good, this one\u2019s gonna be a winner.The Fitbit Edge.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been using a Fitbit Air for a while, and I like it a lot, but I do miss having a fitness tracker that also told me the time. This one does that, plus a little more workout and biometric tracking. It\u2019s not the handsomest wristwear I\u2019ve ever seen, but it is very Fitbit.The CMF Speaker S. I am a sucker for a cool Bluetooth speaker, and these futuristic milk carton-looking devices are fabulous.<\/p>\n
I bought one of the small ones immediately, and I\u2019m already debating a second to build out the stereo pair. More companies should make speakers that look good!E Ink Kaleido 4. This isn\u2019t so much a specific gadget as it is good news for a whole category of gadgets: We have a new version of the color E Ink panel found in lots of devices, with promises of both better colors and better performance. Kaleido has let down a lot of devices, but I\u2019m excited to see what comes of this.I\u2019ve been reading Kevin Roose\u2019s new book, The AGI Chronicles, this week, and I truly cannot recommend it enough.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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\u2019re gonna need to be listening to this one.) So I figured now was a good time to see how Kevin gets it all done \u2014 and whether he\u2019s just Claude Code-d himself out of existence altogether. Have I even been texting with the real Kevin this week? WHO KNOWS.Here\u2019s Kevin\u2019s 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\u2019m holding out until I can preorder the Duo and become a new man).The wallpaper: A photo of my son fishing at the Russian River.The apps: Voice Memos, WhatsApp, Signal, Spotify, Google Maps, Safari, Day One, Brick, Stash, Superwhisper, Substack, Slack, Town, Apple Notes, Phone, Gmail, Messages.I\u2019m a big dictation guy, I barely type anymore, and I use Superwhisper and Voice Memos for everything.<\/p>\n
I vibe-coded a Pocket replacement called Stash that is still a delight many months later. (Building your own apps is so fun!) And I\u2019m running a swarm of AI agents that includes Skynet (my ChatGPT Dot, which I use mostly for personal tasks), Hootie (my work agent, which runs on an app called Town that Casey got me into), and Nancy (my Muse agent, who trades Kalshi on my behalf and has lost me $41 to date).I have a \u201cred flags\u201d app folder for social media and everything else I know is rotting my brain, a \u201cgreen flags\u201d folder for things that feel vaguely enriching, and an AI folder for all of my silly little bots.I also asked Kevin to share a few things he\u2019s into right now. Here\u2019s what he sent back:I\u2019m hopelessly addicted to Balatro, a poker roguelike game that Casey got me into. (I will never forgive him for this.)We\u2019re starting a new, YouTube-first podcast, so I\u2019m watching a lot of popular YouTube shows like New Heights and Good Work to get ideas.For fun, I usually stick with my hobby channels: Served (a tennis podcast hosted by Andy Roddick) and Roffle Lite (a Balatro streamer whose videos I sometimes fall asleep to), plus some stuff my son likes (Mark Rober, Bluey, Yoto stories) that I\u2019ve also gotten into.My favorite new app right now is Dreambeans, a truly demented Google Labs app that sends AI-generated illustrations of personalized suggestions for things to do every day. I\u2019ll open it up and it\u2019s like, \u201cToday you could go birdwatching at Point Reyes\u201d and it\u2019s just a stylized cartoon of me looking at a heron through binoculars. I don\u2019t think people know Dreambeans exists but I love it and am preemptively sad for 6 months from now when Google shuts it down.Here\u2019s what the Installer community is into this week.<\/p>\n
I want to know what you\u2019re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal \u2014 @davidpierce.11 \u2014 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we\u2019ll 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.\u201cI\u2019ve been using the markdown writing app, Em<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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