The surprise must-see movie of the summer

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Google’s new Pixel, an old controller comes back, the TV Time successor, and much more.

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Google’s new Pixel, an old controller comes back, the TV Time successor, and much more.

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 140, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, don’t forget to hydrate, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .)

This week, I’ve been reading about Will Ferrell and Fabrizio Romano and Heather Cox Richardson , scrolling and scrolling through Ordinary Abundance , watching Avatar Aang (which is as good as you said it was), finally getting proficient in CapCut , obsessing over the latest scandal unearthed by PTFO , rewatching Tires now that the third season is out, trying Spark’s AI tools for solving my inbox (so far… meh), revisiting Reply All after the great Hyperfixed episode about its end, and trying to get all my dentist, doctor, haircut, and other appointments done before this baby arrives.

This is my last Installer before heading out on parental leave! Thanks to everyone who has sent well wishes and sleep tips. I need them all. For the next several weeks, you’ll be in the very good hands of Jay Peters, and I’ll be back in early October. For now, though, I also have for you the new phone hotness from Google, a shockingly good dinosaur movie, a look at the Chinese tech industry, and much more. Let’s do this.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / listening to / packing in a cooler this week? 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 .)

I’ve been watching Silo recently — it took me a couple of tries to get into, but once I got to about episode 3, it absolutely hooked me. The show has in turn gotten me into the books they’re based on, by Hugh Howey . I’ve followed Hugh’s work for years, both as an author and as that jacked dude who sometimes appears on my Instagram feed , but I also discovered this week he’s a product guy!

After almost a decade of work, Hugh just launched a writing tool — the one he’s been building for himself — called Neo . It is very specifically a tool for writing books, and very specifically for writing books the way Hugh Howey writes books , but I really enjoy the app even as a look into someone’s very particular process. I don’t know any author who likes the tools they use to write books; maybe Hugh’s onto something.

Anyway, I asked Hugh to share his homescreen with us, to get another peek into his process and life. Here it is, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:

The phone: It’s a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. I feel kinda bad, what with a show on Apple TV right now, but Android is just better.