UE and Beats launch the Bluetooth speakers you need this summer

Hello friends! Welcome to Installer No. 44, your guide to the best and Edge-The Most Important Things in the World. (If you’re new here, welcome, I’m excited we found each other, and you can also read all the old editions on the Installer Homepage.)

This week I have been writing about Why I love the Boox Palmareading about hot dog contests and The History of Markdown and The future of streaminglooking On the coast and Federer and a lot of football (it has been a very sporting week), mourning the end of the Long way podcast, developing a strange obsession with salt water taffyI tested the Apple Vision Pro again and tried every method I could find to make a good iced coffee at home.

I also have a pair of great new Bluetooth speakers for you, the new season of the best show on Hulu, an app to turn everything into audio, and much more.

Also, a quick home maintenance news: don’t Installer Next week. It’s a holiday here in the US (and it’s also my birthday), so I’ll be outside grilling things and getting sunburned. But keep sending recommendations and we’ll send you a very important one right away.

(As always, the best part of Installer are your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should know about? What app should everyone be using? Let me know all about it: installer@theverge.com. And if you know anyone else who might enjoy Installerforward it and tell them to subscribe here).

• The UE Wonderboom 4. A few weeks ago, I said the best speaker advice I could give you was to buy a UE Wonderboom. I keep it, especially now that there is a new one that charges with USB-C! EverboomWith a built-in carabiner and a touch of extra sound, it’s very tempting, but it doesn’t get much better than this one for $100.
• The Beats Pill. More new speakers! I have a soft spot for a good-looking portable sound system, and the new Pill looks pretty good. Chris Welch likes the way it sounds, and I love that it offers wired audio and charges other devices via the USB-C port. Beats did well here, even if I’m still Wonderboomin’.
• Edge dress. I really try not to advertise. Edge There’s too much going on here, but I’m really excited about the new things we’ve been working on. I especially like the hoodie and the mug (which is finally the right size). Restructuring our store has been a fun project and I hope you like things too.
• “The death of the follower and the future of creativity on the Web.” I always enjoy listening to Jack Conte talk about the Internet and I stumbled upon this talk from SXSW where he basically explains how “follow” and “subscribe” changed the world and how we need to change it again.
• ElevenLabs Reader. ElevenLabs does AI voices better than any other product I’ve seen, and they created this iPhone app (coming soon to Android, apparently) in a very clever way. You just share any article, book, or PDF on the app, choose a voice, and the app will read it out loud.
• Blackmagic Camera for Android. There’s a really annoying lack of good third-party camera apps for Android, but this one is a good one, with plenty of manual controls and instant response. It’s only available on a few phones for now, but I’ll take what I can get.
• Sites of notions. This is a neat little idea: create a Notion page and, with one click, publish it to the web. If you want, for example, a one-page personal website or a quick and simple events page, this is much easier than almost anything else out there.
• The bear season 3. I agree with everyone who is upset that Hulu released this season all at once instead of a week at a time. Stretch out the show, give us time to obsess over it! That being said, I will be watching every second of the series this weekend. And then I will re-watch all three seasons as soon as I finish.
• Figma Slides. Figma received some major updates across the board this week: a redesign, a bunch of AI features, and more. But Slides is particularly cool. It’s a combination of design tool and presentation tool, and it looks a lot more fun to play with than PowerPoint.

Yo think the first Sara Dietschy The video I saw was the one where she explained it perfectly. How to vlog with Casey Neistat. (That title, by the way, is like a perfect time capsule of 2016, and I still miss that era of YouTube.) Since then, she’s become one of my favorite creators, talking about everything from cameras to creativity to cars to just…life. . And more recently, as a new mom, it’s been great to see her go through the same things that happen at my house.

I asked Sara to share her home screen with us, curious to see how she balances life stuff with creator stuff. They’re both very demanding and we all only have one home screen, you know? Turns out there’s a little bit of both in there, but mostly life stuff.

Here’s Sara’s home screen, plus some information about the apps she uses and why:

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro.

The wallpaper: My wallpaper is always a rotation of cute baby photos. She is my entire life right now. I mean, look at her…right? I love widgets so I always have the news I’m watching and the weather up front.

The applications: Phone, Clock, Settings, Camera, Photos, Drive, Amazon, Blackmagic Camera, YouTube, Tesla, DoorDash, Apple Notes, Google Authenticator, Vivint, WhatsApp, Nanit, Messages, Hatch Baby, Safari, Gmail.

My home screen is reserved for apps I use multiple times a day.

The to-do widget is from the Things app, where all my to-dos are saved 🙂 But at least they’re super organized.

I also asked Sara to share some of the things she is enjoying right now. Here is what she said:

• Blackmagic Camera. An AMAZING camera app that allows you to capture Apple Log images in a reasonable file size. (Capturing Log images in Apple Camera will leave you with massive ProRes HQ files.)
• apple notes. I recently downsized my team and became obsessed with the speed and simplicity of Notes instead of Notion, which I used to use religiously. Now, Notion is only used for projects I’m working on that require other people.
• nanita. Best baby monitor ever. The feature-packed app makes the expensive hardware worth the money. The PiP feature works flawlessly and you can control the baby monitor’s audio in the background while listening to a podcast or music.
• I’m really into 3D printing right now. It has led me to many “creator” YouTube channels. I’m currently binge-watching. The Adam Savage Test channel.

This is what Installer the community is in this week. I want to know what you’re up to right now too! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal, @davidpierce.11, with your recommendations for anything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here each week. And for more great recommendations than I could possibly fit in here, check out the answers to this post in Threads.

“Watch chess in Installer It made me think of another great chess game! Really bad chess “Zach Gage’s game is really good for my brain. It’s available for iOS and Android with an in-app purchase, and it’s free if you pay for Apple Arcade.” – Harvey

“It saddens me that more people don’t know about”17776” and “20020“Stories from the distant future about football and smart satellites.” – Lego

“I just finished temptation of force by Tessa Gratton. It is the last novel of the Star Wars: The High Republic history, and these are still some of my favorite books of the last 10 years, definitely in the Star Wars universe. “They are set a few hundred years before the movies and I would recommend them to any fan.” – Justin

“Starting to cure a bacon and capicola using Umai Dry Vacuum Bags. I don’t have a good place to cure and dry meats in our town, so it’s nice to be able to do it in the refrigerator. Bonus: I get to use the new vacuum sealer my family gave me for Father’s Day! – Timothy

“Anil Dash wrote two posts on What does a board of directors do?And it’s fascinating! It’s a must read if you’re interested in knowing how corporate governance works.” – Richard

“I’ve been getting interested in downloading apps. “It’s amazing what you can achieve with a developer ID and the pirated iPhone apps out there.” – Dawit

“I can’t stop playing Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor on PC. In this roguelike, you are a dwarf mining precious minerals and fighting hordes of insects on an alien planet. It’s incredibly fun, easy to learn, and the weapon and skill systems are extremely satisfying to handle.” – Abhimanyu

“A while back, I went through the same journey you seem to be on: ‘I want a Light phoneBut… what if I just turn my iPhone into a Light Phone? My favorite option is to build my own with Widgy Widgets. It’s a very powerful app that lets you create your own widgets. It’s not intuitive and has way more power than I’d ever need, but it’s awesome to build your own Light Phone.” – Tomás

“I’m halfway through Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new science fiction book, Service model“And it’s a great story about AI and our dependence on technology. I can’t put it down!” – Sighjinks

Before going to bed, my wife and I sit down almost every night and watch something together. Sometimes we talk about everything, sometimes we watch the show, sometimes we sit and look at our phones all the time. It’s pretty in all three ways! I suspect many people have their relaxation shows, but let me tell you about ours: The Great Food Truck Race in Food Network. (Okay, now Max, but you know what I mean). It’s like a cooking show coming together. The amazing raceThere are 16 seasons (and season 17 starts this weekend!) and they’re all silly and fantastic. My wife and I have also developed hundreds of food truck ideas while watching the show, which is also a lot of fun.

If you need a new show to watch without having to put in too much effort, check out the food trucks. (And if you know of any other shows like this that I should watch, let me know. We’re up to speed on food trucks and it’s a problem.)

Have a great holiday to all celebrating. See you in two weeks!