is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.

Hi! Welcome to Installer No. 89, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My name is Jay Peters, and I will be taking care of Installer while David is on parental leave. All of us here at The Verge are very excited for him and his family, and he’ll be back later this year.

It’s a huge honor to be writing this. I look forward to Installer every week to see what awesome things David is obsessed with and what you all are into. (Thanks to everyone who sent over their favorite non-famous apps to get me started. Keep reading for some of those!) I’m really excited to keep the party going. (If you’re new here, welcome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, as I am at around this time every year, I’ve been obsessed with the annual Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon. If you’ve never watched, the event is an annual, weeklong, always-on livestream of people playing video games at an extremely high level to raise money for charity. Throughout the week, I’ll tune in when I have a moment and then find myself watching somebody obliterate a beloved classic or a game that I’ve never heard of.

The show, which you can watch for free on Twitch, typically ends very early in the morning on Sunday, and you can watch replays on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel. My two favorite runs so far have been a Beat Saber showcase and a nail-biter Cuphead race. (If you have any suggested runs I should watch, let me know — maybe I’ll feature them in a future Installer!)

Anyway, let’s dive in. This week, I have for you some new Samsung foldable phones, a check-in with the developer of one of the great Reddit apps, and more.

(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, tell them to subscribe here. It’s free, and you get it a full day early!)

The Drop

Screen share

If you followed the Reddit protests in 2023, then you probably recognize the name Christian Selig. He was the developer of the beloved Apollo for Reddit iOS app, but he became a central figure of the protests because Reddit’s API changes were going to be so cost-prohibitive that they forced him to shut Apollo down.

I’ve gotten to know Selig, and nowadays, he works on an app called Pixel Pals, is an advisor to the new Digg, and recently posted a great PC build video that has more than 2.5 million views. (Yes, he does poke fun at another, let’s say, infamous PC build video.) I got to catch up with him to learn about his homescreen and what he’s into.

Image: Christian Selig

The phone: iPhone 15 Pro Blue Titanium 128 GB

The wallpaper: I’m pretty sure it’s just something random someone posted on Twitter ages ago that I saved. But I love how simple it is, and I love how it looks on the home screen with the default iOS blur applied.

The apps: I try to keep things simple and positioned in an easy-to-reach area. I don’t keep social media apps on my phone in an attempt to be healthier, so it’s mostly things that are useful: vehicle apps (still a bit cold in Canada, so gotta love being able to preheat your vehicle), with Overcast for podcasts, Microsoft To Do (née Wunderlist) for my to-dos, ChatGPT because it’s 2025, YouTube because I spend way too much time there, Pixel Pals because it’s an app I build so I like to have it nice and handy, the Chess.com app for passing some time, and the alpha for Digg, which has been a ton of fun to use.

I also asked Christian to share a few things he’s into right now:

I’ve gotten into chess lately, and that’s been a ton of fun to play around with and learn as a total noob.

I’ve been digitizing old VHS and Hi8 tapes from my childhood and that has been such a massive rabbit hole to go down, but so, so cool and satisfying to see the results of.

I’m super into all things solar and battery technology. I have a very amateur setup at my apartment with our very limited space, but my partner and I bought land recently and are excited to go down the solar route and hopefully gain some energy independence.

And about his role at Digg:

What an advisor means in this case is basically just being brutally honest with the team on what I think about their mobile app (what is great, what sucks, what could be improved) as well as advising on their developer strategy as they get into that in the future. No bullshit, they’ve been phenomenally receptive and humble in getting feedback.

As for why I got on board, I’ve just kind of been sad about the modern state of community in social networks. Even outside of the Reddit API stuff, Reddit itself just feels more and more lately like a corporate shell of its former fun, vibrant community-based self. Kevin Rose seemed so jazzed about the possibility of imagining a community for the people of the future, and that really spoke to me as something that I also wanted to see exist in the world.

As you can imagine, a lot of folks have pitched me on “Reddit but better!” pie-in-the-sky ideas over the years. Kevin was the first one to come to me with concrete plans for a modern, community-based platform that felt like it had actual wood behind the arrow. And having now talked to the folks that make up the team at “New Digg,” I feel that even more so. They’ve got some really bright people.

Crowdsourced

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 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on The Verge, this post on Threads, and this post on Bluesky.

This week’s section is a mix of everyone’s favorite non-famous apps and some more typical recommendations.

“I want to give a shoutout to my favorite mobile game designer who’s based here in Germany: Arnold Rauers and his little studio Tiny Touchtales develop some beautiful, addictive light strategy games. My favorites are Card Thief, Geo Gods, and Miracle Merchant.” — Nick

“I use Panic’s Nova to make websites and truly love it. Probably my favorite app. Mimestream is also fantastic! Can’t wait for the iPhone version.” — Jeanne

“My favorite non-famous app is Live Soccer TV. Shows you the complete worldwide soccer schedule, and the list of broadcast networks/platforms in each county airing the game. Been on my home screen for ages now. It simply does what it says it does. No fluff and for 5 dollars a year, I pay for the ad free upgrade. Perfect app. Hope it never changes.” — Dustin

“Obsidian and Anybox.” — Peter

“I’m constantly shocked whenever recommendations come up for recipe apps that Crouton is not mentioned. To me, if Apple were to have made a recipe app themselves, this would be it. Even better, it’s cheap — only $14.99/yr and has some incredibly cool features like ‘hands free’ mode that allows you to simply blink your eyes to move to the next step of a recipe for those times when you have chicken juice all over your fingers.” — Justin

“All of Claire North’s books are fantastic! Her stuff is super original: sci-fi-ish but more about big ideas like time, memory, and identity. She does a really good job of bringing out the nuances and real-life feelings and consequences of the roles her characters have. It’s smart and emotional without being heavy, and her characters always stick with me. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August or Touch are great places to start.” — Dave

“I know it’s been out for a while, but my whole family is addicted to Marvel Snap. The new season with The Fantastic Four is really fun so far and this gives my kids things that help them tickle their brain with logic. Also, all the different variants for the cards are really cool to see.” — WALL-E

“Been using Folio as my Pocket replacement and have been quite happy.” — Carter

“All four The Trip movies are streaming on Criterion Channel. Very funny, very mean comedies — and the longer BBC episodic cuts are also available too, if you want the extended play version (which you will).” — Kevin

“Despite my backlog, I’m checking out A Solitaire Mystery, as I have no choice but to play anything from the Baba Is You developer.” — Tristan

“Just made the switch to the Pixel line from iOS, and I’m really digging trying a new OS. Outside of that, I’ve been taking a slight tech break and going back to physically painting, reading paperbacks, and being present.” — EmpireStrikesBacktotheFuture

Signing off

All week, I have been mourning the recent end of the latest series of Taskmaster, a British comedy show where five comedians must all complete absurd tasks and be graded on them by the show’s mercurial host. This batch of episodes, series 19, was my favorite set yet: the cast of comedians (the first to feature an American, Jason Mantzoukas) were all hilarious, and the tasks were ridiculous.

If you’re looking for something new and funny to watch, I can’t recommend series 19 enough. Best of all, you can watch every series of the show for free on YouTube. Your time starts now.

See you next week!