SNL50 on Peacock is a treasure trove of comedy history – The Verge
Plus, in this week’s Installer: new Beats headphones, lots of new stuff to watch this weekend, Apple TV Plus comes to Android, and more.Plus, in this week’s Installer: new Beats headphones, lots of new stuff to watch this weekend, Apple TV Plus comes to Android, and more.by David PierceIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 71, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy long weekend to all those allowed to celebrate, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Alan Turing and OnlyFans and street booze and convenience stores, dusting off my Fortnite skills for the first time in a while, reading The Ministry of Time, working up the courage to make air fryer donuts, trying out a Sony ZV-1 M2 as my webcam, catching up on The White Lotus before season 3 starts, trying Anybox as a bookmarking / note-taking app, and seeing if the Simplify Gmail extension will make me like email more. I also have for you a place to watch all the best SNL sketches, a great new pair of Beats headphones, a new drawing tablet for creators of all kinds, a fun-sounding sci-fi movie on Apple TV Plus, and much more.Oh, and thanks to everyone who sent in music thoughts last week! I got a ton of good responses, and to be completely honest, I haven’t been able to properly read and respond to everything yet. That means next week’s gonna be a big, huge, music-setup extravaganza, and that means if you have thoughts on music services, favorite music gadgets, apps you love, a deep love for Victrolas, or anything else, you’ve still got time to tell me all about it. Hit me up!All right, big streaming weekend ahead. Let’s do this.(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.)I play with a lot of gadgets. (Perk of the job.) But Sean Hollister? Sean Hollister plays with a lot of gadgets. Whether he’s toying with stuff for his awesome video series or taking things apart with wildly complicated Apple tools, I am perpetually jealous of his gadget adventures. Like, just the other day: double magnetic rings! Never seen ‘em before, want ‘em real bad!I asked Sean to share his homescreen with us, because I figured I’d probably discover a bunch of cool new stuff that way, too. Here’s his homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:The phone: Galaxy Z Flip 5.The wallpaper: The bog-standard stock wallpaper. I don’t even know if it has a name.The apps: Openvibe, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, NewsBlur, Yelp, Google Photos, The Verge, Slack, Evernote, MyFitnessPal, Discord, Chrome, Gmail, Google Calendar, Home Assistant, Phone, Messages, Camera, Google Maps.You’re looking at the homescreen of an information junkie in transition — the clues are all there. First, I’m down to just 36 percent battery at 4:25PM and I’ve barely used this phone today… so I’m actively looking for my next phone.Second, I’ve got four social media clients up top because I’ve been hedging my bets on which to keep — you might notice I’ve got notifications from X, but no X on the homescreen, because I only still follow a handful of accounts there for news! Instead, The Verge gets its own dedicated shortcut.Third, the reason Signal and Messenger are in an ugly drawer together and Facebook has 54 unreads is because I’m trying to reduce my support for Meta after certain, ahem, societal shifts, but haven’t fully managed it yet.The key apps on this homescreen are actually MyFitnessPal, which I’m using almost every day just as a calorie counter to actually lose weight; Evernote, where far too much of my memory lives; and Home Assistant for controlling things around my house. Of course the first two apps are getting far too bloated with unwanted features, and my smart home has a tendency to break!Not pictured: Pokémon TCG Pocket, which I recently moved to the fifth homescreen to reduce addiction.I also asked Sean to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back: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. For more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads and this post on Bluesky.“Trying to stay sane by limiting my consumption of news and screen time amidst the chaos going around. Reading The Wager from David Grann, the author of Killers of the Flower Moon. Essentially about conflicting reports of a real-life Lord of the Flies that transpires in the 1700s. Very interesting!” – Colin“We just started watching Paradise over here and it’s fantastic.” – Jules“As the topic of digital self-determination is more and more a topic (yes, here in Germany too), I was looking into different OSes for my mobile phone. I found a rather good working alternative to Google’s Android and iOS which is called /e/OS. It works really well, and I can still use all my apps. And they sell phones with pre-installed /e/.” – Christian“Played a lot of this game called Hole. The name is unfortunate, but it’s cheap and a very good time.” – Sophie“I don’t know if a lot of people care about this but Notion and TickTick have a two-way integration and it’s great!! I still feel it’s limited in functionality because I can only send one list at a time, which doesn’t make sense, and it’s limited to three lists.” – Barry“Found some joy on the Internet this week with this video. It’s playing the Star Trek TNG theme song as if it was blaring from the Enterprise itself!” – Mike“Recently downloaded the National Film Board app and it’s a delight. ‘Get free access to the largest collection of Canadian films online. No subscription or ads.’” – Christine“After Instagram showed me video recordings from BBC’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue I delved into old episodes. If you appreciate British humo(u)r and can stand some musical parts, it’s gloriously fun. I am back to being the crazy person laughing out loud on public transport.” – Sinan“I recently discovered Bear Blog, it’s a cool minimalistic blogging platform with a lot of customization and a Discovery page that feels a little like Hacker News.” – SammieYou know what might be my favorite new-ish thing on the internet? Reddit Answers. I’ve been using it a lot recently, and I’ve found it to be a basically unparalleled system for getting lots of recommendations. “What are some great, lesser-known brands of dark chocolate” got me a long list of great ideas, with links to relevant posts and comments. “Are Bose or Sony headphones better” offered a pretty cogent back-and-forth debate. “What are the most popular conspiracy theories about Severance” sent me down an hourslong rabbit hole.As with all AI search, my rules are simple: nothing with high stakes, no believing the answers without clicking the links. But the more I use Answers, the more I’m convinced there’s something real here. And the more Severance theories I start to believe.See you next week!A weekly newsletter by David Pierce designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Verge’s universe.© 2025 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved
