Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 73, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, belated happy Pokémon Day, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
Technology
Our favorite speakers, headphones, and other music gear
This week, I’ve been reading about the Zizians and fancy suits and Heavyweight, watching Suits LA and The White Lotus, obsessively tracking Formula 1 testing, apologizing profusely to anyone who watched The Gorge on my recommendation, working to an eight-hour mix of the Severance music, seeing if Bend will actually help me stretch more, and watching a lot of Encanto with a toddler who refuses to sleep.
I also have for you a new repairable laptop, a spiffy new mobile version of Photoshop, the coolest and strangest camera I’ve seen in a while, good explainers on app development and content moderation, and much more. Plus, the second part of our two-part exploration of all your favorite music gear. I’m psyched. Let’s do 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: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
- The Framework Laptop 12. All my PC gamer friends are more excited about the Framework Desktop, but I think the company’s cheapest (and best-looking) laptop is going to be one to watch. There’s still a lot we don’t know about this thing, but I hope I get to recommend it to a lot of folks this year.
- Photoshop for iPhone. For the first time, there’s a mobile version of Photoshop that actually feels like Photoshop. This is not entirely a good thing — there’s a lot going on in this app — and Adobe is awfully late to the game here, but a super-powered image editor is always a welcome thing on smartphones.
- Flashes for Bluesky. What if Bluesky, but Instagram? That’s the whole idea behind this app, which reskins Bluesky to be much more visual and image-heavy, and gives you a way to quickly post photos (with filters!) of your own. This is the kind of open social stuff I just love.
- Claude 3.7. I’m still hearing all the time about how much more people like Claude than ChatGPT or Gemini, and this new model is fascinating. “Deep research” is all the rage right now, but Claude now lets you decide how deep, and thus how slow, it’ll be.
- The Sigma BF. In terms of features and usability, there’s no way this is the best $2,000 camera you can buy. But on pure aesthetic appeal, I’m not sure anything is beating this blocky, beautiful, ultra-simplified camera.
- Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s only February, and this is already getting a lot of Game of the Year buzz — there are a lot of new mechanics to get used to, but it appears to be very much worth the six-year wait.
- Beeper Beta. I won’t lie, I kind of forgot about Beeper. But it’s back and starting to ship again; the new Mac app is basically the old Texts.com app with a new color scheme, but the iOS app appears to be totally new. (Android, meanwhile, remains the best platform for Beeper by a mile.)
- John Oliver on Facebook and content moderation. I always love John Oliver, but this is particularly great: thoughtful and smart on Section 230, the challenges and politics of content moderation, and much more. Also, don’t miss the Last Week Tonight guide to making yourself less valuable to Meta.
- “Why Are There So Many iOS-Only Apps?” An extremely good answer to an extremely Installer-y question! (And one I’ve been looking into recently, as well.) To all of you who are annoyed there aren’t more Android-first apps in here: I’m with you, and here’s why.
Last week, we talked about our favorite music apps. Turns out we all love Plexamp, tolerate Spotify, and would love to have a better way to catalog and share our own music collections. This week: gear. So many of you reached out wanting to share your favorite speakers, headphones, DACs, receivers, RCA cables, and everything else that I figured I’d try and lay out some of the most popular stuff in my inbox.
First, the big and (maybe) obvious takeaway is that y’all love Sonos gear. The vast majority of people who reached out said that the best thing you can buy for a budding music setup is a great pair of stereo speakers, and most of you started with Sonos. For all its app woes, it seems there’s still no beating Sonos’ combination of sound quality and connectivity. That said, I did also get some great alternative recommendations:
- A bunch of folks recommended various Edifier speakers, across the whole range of products. They’re nice, and y’all seem to like their stuff from the cheapest Bluetooth models to the highest-end pro gear.
- I would never in a million years have guessed how many people would tell me they have, and love, HomePods and HomePod Minis. I heard from so many people who bought them on one sale and are thrilled with the results.
- I also heard a bunch about the KEF LSX, a set of really nice-looking speakers that work wirelessly or wired, with Chromecast and AirPlay, and are exactly the kind of versatile bookshelf speakers I’ve been looking for. I’m going to end up buying these.
- Lots of “just buy a soundbar” responses, too! The Vizio soundbar got some love, but I heard from a few people that practically any soundbar will be a huge upgrade to your living room audio system. I tend to agree.
For headphones, there surprisingly wasn’t a clear winner. But there were a few models that came up a lot: The Sony MDR-7506, the Sennheiser HD 600, the Sony WF-C510, the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro, the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2E, and the Bose QuietComfort. There are also plenty of AirPods Pro fans out there, too.
I got a lot of receiver and amp recommendations — it’s definitely the second upgrade, after a good set of speakers, that most people bring into their setup — but only one brand came up more than once. A lot of folks love their WiiM Ultras for combining digital and analog music, the WiiM Mini seems to be a must-have for folks with older stereo gear, and the WiiM Amp Pro is the centerpiece of a lot of your setups. I’ve never really used WiiM stuff, but I’m going to have to change that.
Some other notes from my inbox:
- Turntables are so back. Audio Technica seems to be the go-to brand, but I also heard good things about the U-Turn Audio Orbit and all of Pro-Ject’s gear.
- I am convinced that every single person who owns a Sony Walkman emailed me to tell me they love it. I believe you! I kind of want one now. There are also a lot of iPod restorers out there, and one person who shared the coolest-looking CD player I’ve ever seen.
- There is a strong preference for streaming audio over Chromecast Audio, rather than AirPlay, Bluetooth, or anything else. The quality is better, and a bunch of you told me it’s more reliable and better synced across speakers.
- A few of you told me about home systems you’ve built with Raspberry Pis, the HiFiBerry converter, and the HiFiBerryOS. Sounds like a relatively straightforward and extremely fun project.
Thank you again to everyone who reached out and contributed to our group project the last few weeks — I read every email, Signal message, and social post, and I learned so much from all of you. We’ll have to do more music stuff soon, too, since I’ve really only scratched the surface here. Stay tuned!
I am, both by virtue of my job and my particular brand of strangeness, always scouring the internet for people’s tech setups. I think I’m just permanently convinced that I’m One Weird Trick away from my whole life being perfect, sane, and organized, you know?
When I came across a semi-viral Threads post showing a really clever iPhone setup that made heavy use of Shortcuts and Focus modes, I immediately needed to know more. I’ve never been able to really figure out Focus modes in particular, and I wanted to see if this was the key. So I reached out to its creator, Colin, who goes by the username Tinyblocks. I asked Colin to share their own setup to see what else I might learn. So here’s Colin’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps they use and why:
The phone: I’m using an iPhone 15.
The wallpaper: The minimal wallpaper I use is designed to blend with the dock for a cleaner look. It’s created by another Notion creator, the Digital Minimalist.
The apps: Gmail, Slack, Figma, Google Drive, Google Sheets, WhatsApp, Telegram, LinkedIn, Messenger, Discord, Instagram, X, Threads, Circle, Skool, Gumroad, YouTube, Google Maps, Naver, KorailTalk, Kakao T, Booking, Airbnb, Naver Papago, Translate, HappyCow, Revolut, Salad, KH Online, Wallet, Indy, AutoEntrepreneur, Binance, Finary, Bankin’.
After seeing how many people were interested in my dock setup, I created a free detailed guide that’s available on my Gumroad.
The core of my setup uses Focus modes and Shortcuts. I’ve created custom Focus modes, each with a dedicated page containing only relevant apps. For example, my Travel mode has maps, translation apps, Airbnb, and booking apps; Finance mode has banking apps and expense trackers. Each Focus mode has customized notifications to minimize distractions.
I replaced the default dock apps with four shortcuts to my main Focus modes, allowing me to transform my phone’s setup with just one tap. For apps I use across all modes, I utilize the Today View (left swipe) with widgets and shortcuts to apps like Messages, Photos, Gmail, Notion, Claude, Arc, and SyncTask.
I also asked Colin to share a few things they’re into right now. Here’s what they shared:
- Productivity tools, especially Notion (I’m working on becoming a Notion creator).
- Learning Korean (I’m living in Korea currently). It’s challenging but rewarding. I have a private lesson once a week. As I’m a huge Notion nerd, I’ve created my own setup there to track vocabulary and grammar rules.
- My nerdy side comes out with audiobooks, particularly anything by Brandon Sanderson. Right now I’m listening to his Secret Project books. My favorite series from him is the Wax & Wayne series (Mistborn Era 2).
- I recently started a consistent gym routine and am really enjoying it. I began with a few PT classes to get started, and now I’m following my trainer’s recommended plan for the next few weeks. I’ll probably end up making my own gym planner (in Notion, of course).
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com 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.
“We started using Huckleberry right away to track our baby’s eating, diapers, sleeping, and even my wife’s pumping, and we probably haven’t grazed the surface of what the app offers. Super helpful to simply make sure your baby has eaten enough and has soiled enough diapers plus much more! I also work for a sales company that uses Salesforce to log everything, and it definitely takes practice to get used to it, so this is great practice!” — Spencer
“I’ve recently paired up my Keys-To-Go 2 with my Boox Poke 3 and it’s a perfect coffee shop set-up for distractionless writing.” — Jeroen
“Starting to watch the third season of Industry, the Max series about a group of hungry, young graduates competing for a limited number of permanent positions at Pierpoint & Co., a leading bank in London.” — Rob
“I’ve been diving into the world of e-readers this week and just made the switch from Kindle to a Kobo Clara BW. It’s the perfect handheld size with clear text and an auto warm light that makes reading sessions at night so easy. It’s like a smaller Paperwhite. But what I’ve really enjoyed are the thoughtful software touches that bring elements of physical books to e-readers, like the ability to digitally ‘dog-ear’ a page by folding the corner! Such a nice touch!” — Ian
“ChessUp 2. The board allows you to play chess against the computer, and it can also provide assistance to one or both of the players during a 1v1 game. The board and pieces feel really high quality, and give a satisfying soft and pleasant sound when you move them. The lights coming from the board give the whole experience a very cool feel that reminds me of the 3D chess in Star Wars episode IV.” — Thomas
“Learning how to prove you’re not an AI, and the future of content verification with C2PA.” — Colin
“Saw the Anybox mention in the latest Installer as a way to capture links and notes, but a AAA tip for you or your readers: it’s also a fantastic way to capture images across any Apple device and categorize them for later. From cool game shots to retro print ads to memes that express any emotion, it’s been essential to my work Slack responses.” — Ryan
“Watched this documentary on NHK about the creator of the manga Detective Conan. This shows what people do for the love of the art” — Gigg
“I was able to join the alpha for Deta Surf and it’s one of the strangest and most interesting web browsers I’ve ever used. It’s absolutely brimming with personality. It feels more like a weird experiment than a browser in some ways at the moment, but I love seeing this kind of creativity in the software space.” — Luke
A few weeks ago, my social feeds started filling up with videos and clips from the comedian Josh Johnson. This was great news; he’s hilarious. And he’s also one of the most internetty and newsy comedians I’ve ever seen — he has a really fun set on DeepSeek, another one on the TikTok ban, and another one on Hawk Tuah, just to name a few. He writes for The Daily Show, so I guess it makes sense that he’s all over pop culture. But I’ve hit the point where I’ll watch anything he posts, and I sincerely can’t figure out how he’s this funny and this prolific. My favorite thing on YouTube right now, and it’s not super close.
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more stories on Big Tech versus politics in Washington, DC, follow Tina Nguyen and read Regulator. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
A long time ago, in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission laid down a rule designed to prevent a monopoly: No one company could broadcast to more than 39 percent of all the TV households in the United States. But then Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Brendan Carr became FCC chairman and immediately kicked off a deregulatory initiative called “Delete, Delete, Delete,” in which Carr vowed to get rid of “every rule, regulation, or guidance document” that placed “unnecessary regulatory burdens” on companies. And within months, Nexstar, which already owned over 200 stations nationwide and had hit its ownership cap, announced that it had entered an agreement to purchase its rival, Tegna, for an estimated $6.2 billion — something that could only happen, however, if Carr agreed to change the FCC’s rules.
If you ask Nexstar why it’s pursuing a merger that would give it control of over 80 percent of the market, it’d point to Big Tech as the culprit. As advertisers take their money to Netflix, YouTube, and other digital streamers, linear television — the local television news, the broadcast affiliates, the basic cable networks — has suffered, forcing them to consolidate and shut down newsrooms. In that sense, Nexstar argued, the merger would help it compete for ad revenue with the streaming services, thereby building more robust local journalism. However, the merger’s opponents believe that this is a basic violation of antitrust laws and principles — not to mention the danger of letting one company have editorial control over the vast majority of America’s local television newsrooms.
But the second Trump administration handles regulatory hurdles a little differently than others, and companies have found that it’s faster to get what they want if they bypass the agencies and talk (read: suck up) to Trump directly. And when Nexstar did so publicly, it confirmed its opponents’ fears about political influence. Last September, in the fraught weeks after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk, Nexstar announced it would no longer broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live! — a response to Carr’s claim that the FCC could revoke the broadcast licenses of TV stations that aired the comedian’s comments related to Kirk. It briefly led to ABC suspending Kimmel’s show, though ABC and Nexstar soon reversed their decision after a massive nationwide backlash and an ABC boycott.
However, Nexstar’s loyalty to Trump himself was not enough to win over his most powerful MAGA supporters. Newsmax, a cable news network with a deeply pro-Trump bent, and its CEO, longtime Trump donor and outside adviser Chris Ruddy, filed a lawsuit objecting to the merger, claiming that Nexstar’s anticompetitive behavior would force channels like his off the air with steeper carriage fees. He specifically accused Nexstar of jacking up the fees for stations to carry Newsmax, while offering its similar network, NewsNation, for much cheaper.
The Nexstar-Tegna MAGA makeover then took a more subtle turn. NewsNation hired the pro-Trump Fox News commentator Katie Pavlich and gave her her own primetime show. (The network had already hired a slew of former Fox journalists as well.) Around this time, a political group called Keep News Local began airing ads in DC that seemed to directly address Trump, praising him for having “defeated the fake news monopolies before through independent voices and local news” and claiming that the Nexstar-Tegna merger was “crucial for MAGA to survive.” (A little self-contradictory and mildly illogical, but it’s the kind of stuff that Trump likes to hear.) When I last spoke to Ruddy in February, I asked if he’d worried that the dark money going into Keep News Local would sway Trump, and he chose his words carefully: “I think at the end of the day, Trump makes up his own mind. I’m not sure he’s going to be influenced by an ad campaign.”
For months, no one could accurately predict if Trump would override Carr’s wishes and bless the deal, as he’s often done for other companies facing regulatory scrutiny. Trump’s Truth Social posts about the merger have been a good indicator of how precarious the merger has been and who’s been able to influence him at any given moment: Last November, he blasted the deal as an “EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS,” but by February, he posted that the deal would “help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition.”
Several current and former NewsNation employees told Status at the time that they feared that the parent company was steering NewsNation away from the centrist, “unbiased” reputation they’d long cultivated. “A lot of people within the network believe that the network has gone hard right to appeal to Trump and Brendan Carr,” one former employee told Status. Coincidentally, days before the deal was finalized, NewsNation began ramping up its explicitly pro-Trump content, tweeting a clip of CNN’s Kaitlan Collins being berated by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, along with the comment “Just going to leave this here.”
When Trump greenlit the merger in mid-March, but before the FCC’s three commissioners could vote on whether to waive the ownership cap, Nexstar and Tegna immediately announced a new complication: Tegna and Nexstar had already started merging. Tegna was no more and CEO Mike Steib had already sold $22.6 million of his company stock.
In response, eight state attorneys general and satellite TV operator DirectTV, which had already been planning to file separate federal antitrust suits against the merger, asked US District Judge Troy Nunley in Sacramento for an emergency restraining order that would prevent Nexstar from taking over Tegna’s assets. The order was granted on March 27th and on April 17, Nunley issued a formal injunction, ruling that Tegna must be operated as an independent financial entity, and Nexstar must take steps to ensure it remains separate from Tegna before further legal proceedings.
For now, Nunley has allowed the states and DirecTV to combine their cases, in which both argue that the merger was a clear violation of antitrust laws and would crush news competition.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats in Congress are furious at Carr. On March 30th, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) sent the chairman a joint letter admonishing him for allowing his staff to waive the regulations to let the merger pass, instead of having the full commission of political appointees — one from the Biden administration — vote on it. “Under these circumstances,” they wrote, “any subsequent vote risks being largely procedural rather than a genuine exercise of commission responsibility.” They also pointed out that their hasty approval without the commission’s approval would now complicate the merger financially: “In a transaction of this scale, where integration proceeds quickly and unwinding becomes impractical, delay in judicial review can insulate the decision from meaningful challenge.” Notably, though they share similar ideological views on the media and deregulation, Cruz and Carr have frequently clashed over how to achieve their objectives. Cruz previously slammed Carr as a “mafioso,” for instance, for the way he’d used the FCC to silence Kimmel.
But even if it’s legally paused, the journalistic merger’s fallout has started to hit local news. NPR’s David Folkenfirk reported on Tuesday that Tegna journalists had already started receiving orders to stop broadcasting content from major broadcasters like ABC, CBS, and NBC — media outlets being targeted by Carr — and instead begin airing content from Nexstar’s NewsNation.
- Brendan Carr’s views on using the FCC to punish major broadcasters was outlined pretty extensively in the chapter he authored in Project 2025, an initiative led by the conservative Heritage Foundation on how to reform the federal bureaucracy to be more favorable to the American right.
- Exactly how much is local television losing to digital? According to industry publication NewscastStudio, in an investor call defending the purchase, Nexstar chairman Perry Sook cited a market research study from Borrell Associates, which found that “digital advertising in local markets exceeds $100 billion, compared to just $25 billion for local linear television advertising, with nearly two-thirds of digital ad dollars flowing to five major technology companies.”
- If you want to see exactly how much Keep Local News was trying to suck up to Trump, the ads are archived here.
- The Vergecast has a long-running segment called “Brendan Carr is a dummy.”
- The LA Times reported on last week’s preliminary hearings in front of Nunley, and how lawyers for Nexstar, the states, and DirecTV plan to argue their case.
- The Desk has insights from Kirk Varner, a former TV newsroom director, on how the case could go.
- Andrew Liptak covered Nexstar’s previous acquisition sprees for The Verge in 2018.
- Adi Robertson walks through exactly how the Kimmel suspension was an attack on free speech.
- Brendan Carr keeps trying to convince people that he’s not threatening to suspend broadcast licenses for reporting on unfavorable things like the Iran war, reports Lauren Feiner.
- The Vergecast has a long-running segment called “Brendan Carr is a dummy.”
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A Chinese-built humanoid robot beat the human half-marathon world record in Beijing on Sunday, marking a breakthrough moment in a high-stakes global race for technological dominance.
A robot developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor completed the 21-kilometer (13-mile) race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, beating the human record of about 57 minutes set by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo last month.
The performance marked a dramatic improvement from last year’s inaugural event, when the top robot finished in more than 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Dozens of humanoid robots competed alongside about 12,000 human runners, navigating a parallel course to avoid collisions.
CHINA’S COMPACT HUMANOID ROBOT SHOWS OFF BALANCE AND FLIPS
A robot crosses the finish line in the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon held in the outskirts of Beijing on April 19, 2026. (Andy Wong/AP)
Nearly half of the robots ran using autonomous navigation, while others relied on remote control, organizers said.
Despite the breakthrough, the race still saw glitches, with some robots stumbling at the start or veering into barriers.
Engineers said the winning robot was designed to mimic elite athletes, featuring long legs of about 37 inches and advanced cooling systems to sustain performance.
US TARGETS CHINESE ROBOTS OVER SECURITY FEARS
“Looking ahead, some of these technologies might be transferred to other areas,” said Du Xiaodi, an engineer with the Honor team. “For example, structural reliability and liquid-cooling technology could be applied in future industrial scenarios.”
Team members celebrate next to the winning Honor Lightning humanoid robot during a medal ceremony after the second Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon in Beijing, China, on April 19, 2026. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)
Spectators reacted with a mix of amazement and unease at the machines’ rapid progress.
“It’s the first time robots have surpassed humans, and that’s something I never imagined,” Sun Zhigang, who attended the event with his son, told The Associated Press.
HUMANOID ROBOTS HIT MASS PRODUCTION IN CHINA
“The robots’ speed far exceeds that of humans,” spectator Wang Wen told the outlet. “This may signal the arrival of sort of a new era.”
A robot starts alongside human runners at the Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Half Marathon on the outskirts of Beijing on April 19, 2026. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
Experts say the race highlights China’s accelerating push to dominate robotics and artificial intelligence, even as widespread commercial use of humanoid robots remains limited, according to Reuters. The experts said Chinese robotics firms are still working to develop the AI software needed for humanoids to match the efficiency of human factory workers.
Runners take pictures of a humanoid robot during the second Beijing E-Town Half Marathon and Humanoid Robot Half Marathon in Beijing on April 19, 2026. (Haruna Furuhashi/Pool Photo via AP)
“The future will definitely be an AI era,” engineering student Chu Tianqi told Reuters. “If people don’t know how to use AI now … they will definitely become obsolete.”
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The competition underscores a broader technological race between China and the United States, as Beijing invests heavily in advanced robotics as part of its long-term economic strategy.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
According to Nikkei Asia, even as suppliers ramp up DRAM production, manufacturers are only expected to meet 60 percent of demand by the end of 2027. SK Group chairman has even said that shortages could last until 2030.
The world’s largest memory makers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — are all working to add new fabrication capacity, but almost none of it will be online until at least 2027, if not 2028. SK opened a fab in Cheongju in February, but that is the only increase in production among the three for 2026.
Nikkei says that production would need to increase by 12 percent a year in 2026 and 2027 to meet demand. But according to Counterpoint Research, an increase of only 7.5 percent is planned.
The new facilities will primarily focus on producing high-bandwidth memory (HBM), which is used in AI data centers. With the companies already prioritizing HBM over general-purpose DRAM used in computers and phones, it’s not clear how much these new fabs will help alleviate the price crunch facing consumer electronics. Everything from phones and laptops, to VR headsets and gaming handhelds have seen price increases due to the RAM shortage.
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