Why all of your notes and recordsdata ought to be plain textual content

Hello, associates! Welcome to Installer No. 26, your information to the most effective and Verge-iest stuff on the earth. (For those who’re new right here, welcome. So psyched you discovered us, and likewise you may learn all of the outdated editions on the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been taking part in with the redesigned You.com for AI analysis, making an attempt out the Phanpy Mastodon shopper, getting again into Zombies, Run after studying Vee Music’s nice story about Fantasy Hike, and studying the brand new “misplaced chapter” of The Martian earlier than in all probability simply rereading The Martian once more.

I even have for you some non-earbud earbuds, a nerdy video about nerdy stuff, a brand new to-do record app, a brand new factor in ChatGPT, and rather more. Let’s do it.

(As at all times, the most effective a part of Installer is your concepts and suggestions. What are you doing, studying, watching, taking part in, testing, cooking, lifting, soldering, or charging proper now? What cool stuff are you into that everybody else also needs to be into? Inform me all the pieces: installer@theverge.com or +1 203-570-8663. And if you already know another person who may get pleasure from Installer, ahead it to them and inform them to subscribe right here.)

• Bose’s Extremely Open Earbuds. For some purpose, over the past yr or so, virtually all in-ear headphones abruptly go away my ears sore and scratchy. So I’m very curious to strive these — despite the fact that at $299 they’re too costly for my tastes, the clip-on fashion looks as if it may work.
• Bulletin. The Verge’s Parker Ortolani turned me onto this: a brand new (Apple-only) news- and RSS-reading app with numerous AI options for summarization and stuff, but in addition only a actually pretty UI for studying information feeds. You’ll be able to add premade lists, dump in any web site or feed, even save stuff to learn later.
• The House Race. A extremely cool documentary about early Black astronauts, with tons of archival footage and a extremely wild Chilly Conflict subplot. As with all good house docs, be sure you watch this one on the most important display you’ll find.
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Imaginative and prescient Professional evaluate. The evaluate itself is, like, wonderful — I believe Zuck is correct about numerous the issues individuals really need headsets for, and in regards to the price-to-quality stability being a tough one. However capturing a evaluate of a competitor’s product, with your individual product, in such an informal method, is simply fascinating to me.
• The ONE factor preserving this iconic classic laptop computer from working… Just lately, for causes I hope to sometime be capable of let you know about, I’ve been deep down the rabbit gap of superior outdated devices. And the This Does Not Compute channel has grow to be one among my favourite new assets — the host is perpetually making an attempt to revive or resurrect some outdated PC, and even this random Toshiba laptop computer left me desperately wanting one. 
• Superlist. This week’s “to-do record app that’s so near being all the pieces I wished and perhaps I’ll simply spend the entire weekend making an attempt it out.” It’s a teams-first product, which, meh, however that is the best-looking productiveness app I’ve seen in years.
• Mario vs. Donkey Kong. Extra up to date spins on old-school Mario video games for the Swap! How did we get so fortunate! This one’s a platformer with a extremely enjoyable puzzle-y twist, which is precisely the sort of sport I wish to spend too many hours taking part in on the sofa.
• How AI Tech Can Give Lifeless Individuals a Voice. This week’s winner of the “Is that this highly effective and superior, or is that this horrifying” award is The Shotline, which is utilizing AI to recreate the voices of youngsters who have been victims of gun violence. Joanna Stern’s video is nice, and The Shotline’s voices will make you’re feeling… numerous issues.
• DuckDuckGo. DDG simply rolled out a cool new instrument that permits you to sync passwords and bookmarks throughout platforms while not having an account; you simply scan a QR code so as to add a brand new machine. At this level, I’m cautious of claiming any firm is definitely privateness choice, however DuckDuckGo is definitely doing the work. 

Some time again, I obtained actually near transferring all my private docs, e-mail, calendar, and recordsdata into Skiff, which was mainly a privacy-focused Google Drive competitor. Stuff obtained busy, and transferring all that stuff is an enormous venture, nevertheless it’s been on my record for some time. Tremendous glad I didn’t get to it, although, as a result of Skiff was simply acquired by Notion and is now shutting down.

If I’ve discovered one factor in my years of masking tech, it’s that nothing is assured to stay round, regardless of how a lot you find it irresistible or how in style it’s. Issues change, errors occur, stuff disappears. And each time it occurs, I get just a little extra non secular about one thing that Steph Ango, the CEO of Obsidian, likes to say: file over app.

The concept of “file over app” is to care much more about your knowledge itself than the app or platform it’s in. Like, the app you’re utilizing now? Most likely not going to be round in 50 years. Textual content recordsdata and JPGs and PDFs? Far more prone to nonetheless be right here! So put money into codecs that final, not apps that don’t.

What meaning for me, personally, is that I attempt to flip my life into textual content recordsdata and their equivalents as typically as doable.

• I take advantage of an iOS and Mac app referred to as NotePlan for day by day notes and process administration — the app is constructed on prime of a folder of Markdown recordsdata I can simply use wherever else. Obsidian and Logseq are each the identical method and are each wonderful (if very completely different) apps.
• I take advantage of the bookmarking service Raindrop to retailer all of the hyperlinks I care about, for Installer and all the pieces else, and as soon as every week I export all my hyperlinks as a CSV file and once more as a textual content file.
• Day One is the place I preserve my precise journal, and each month or so I export the entire thing to a PDF.
• Annually or so, after I’m feeling each bored and bold, I’ll again up my whole digicam roll and Google Photographs library to an exterior exhausting drive. All the opposite stuff goes into Google Drive, and onto that very same exhausting drive.

I attempt to discover apps which might be made with textual content recordsdata in thoughts. Once I can’t, I attempt to discover apps with good, sturdy export methods, and ensure I’m backing issues up typically. I’m completed getting caught inside an app I can’t belief to be round for lengthy.

There’s much more for me to do right here, and admittedly nonetheless numerous stuff in my life that can disappear if some big-name companies delete my account or go offline altogether. (I’m nonetheless making an attempt to determine whether or not my e-mail and calendar are issues I ought to be archiving…) However I now have years of journal entries, day by day duties, venture archives, and extra in a format I’m assured I’ll be capable of a minimum of open and have a look at on my neural face-puter in 2096. And it makes me really feel higher, so I figured I’d share.

Oh, and by the best way, there are so many nice textual content editors on the market. Typora might be the most effective writing app I’ve ever used. For those who write code, you already know BBEdit and VS Code and Elegant Textual content. Nota, Ulysses, iA Author, and a bunch of others all do job of serving to you each write and arrange. Dwelling in textual content recordsdata doesn’t imply residing in Notepad or TextEdit; you actually can have the most effective of each worlds. Textual content recordsdata endlessly!

Zoë Schiffer, the managing editor on the wonderful Platformer publication (and a Verge alum!), simply printed among the best tech books I’ve learn shortly. It’s referred to as Extraordinarily Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter, and belief me, nevertheless wild you suppose the final couple of years have been at X / Twitter, the precise fact is way wilder. Zoë’s been reporting on this saga all through, and the ebook’s a complete winner.

I requested Zoë to share her homescreen with us on the eve of her ebook launch, as a result of one factor I’ve at all times appreciated about Zoë is that she is endlessly deeply conflicted about know-how. She reviews on it, understands it deeply, makes use of it consistently, however can be perpetually making an attempt to get her Display Time numbers down. Since I’m deeply embarrassed by my Display Time report mainly each week, I wished to see how she does it.

Right here’s Zoë’s homescreen, plus some information on the apps she makes use of and why:

The cellphone: That is an iPhone 14, I consider. The display is cracked and I take advantage of it solely for work. I’ve an iPhone mini with no apps besides Spotify and Google Maps that I take advantage of as my private cellphone. The method of getting a separate work cellphone (with apps) and a private cellphone (with virtually nothing fascinating) has dropped my screentime to about 2.5 hours a day, to not brag.

The wallpaper: My wallpaper is a photograph of my scorching a** husband, and my two-year-old daughter. 

The apps: Apple Calendar, Google Maps, Apple Notes, Sign, Apple Mail, Threads, ChatGPT, Spotify, Cellphone, Messages.

My essential homescreen has Sign, which I take advantage of consistently to speak with sources, and Threads, which is my main Twitter alternative. I even have ChatGPT, which I like. I ask it about varied well being signs and likewise to create recipes for, like, a single chocolate chip cookie.

One display over I’ve TikTok, which is my responsible pleasure, and Bluesky, which I’m making an attempt to make use of extra however feels just a little chaotic. I even have a being pregnant tracker as a result of (duh) I’m pregnant. Proper now the child is the dimensions of a lime, in order that’s good. 

I additionally requested Zoë to share a couple of issues she’s into proper now. Right here’s what she stated:

• Proper now, I’m rereading Harry Potter and listening to numerous Caroline Shaw.
• Oh you meant on the web??? Huh. Huuuuuh. I like the style publication Blackbird Spyplane. I’m an enormous fan of the Moderated Content material podcast.
• I’ve seen the comic Jacqueline Novak twice IRL (the primary time, I dragged Casey Newton alongside, not realizing the complete set is about blow jobs, and I critically apprehensive I used to be going to get fired), and she or he has a brand new comedy particular on Netflix that basically will get me. 

Right here’s what the Installer group is into this week. I need to know what you’re into proper now as nicely! E mail installer@theverge.com or message +1 203-570-8663 along with your suggestions for something and all the pieces, and we’ll characteristic a few of our favorites right here each week. 

“I’ve been taking part in the brand new Dominion card sport app! Dominion is a deckbuilding sport from again within the day, and it’s obtained a number of (I consider 15) expansions up to now. Earlier iterations of the sport on-line and in app type by no means absolutely realized their potential. That is the most effective implementation of the sport to this point. There’s offline play in opposition to AI, matchmaking, and you may as well do non-public matches with associates through a Nintendo-esque good friend code system.” — Matt

“I’ve been listening to and immensely having fun with Worlds Past Quantity, an precise play narrative podcast from the most effective of us to ever do it.” — Caleb

“I acquired my Retroid Pocket 4 Professional within the mail this week after a few month of ready from China. It exceeded expectations, and I’m having a good time emulating N64, GameCube, and PlayStation 2 video games. On Saturday I had a good friend over, and we performed sofa co-op video games similar to the great outdated days utilizing a USB-C hub and a pair controllers. Extremely really helpful for an enormous nostalgia kick.” — Nicholas

“Having enjoyable taking part in outdated Nintendo titles on the Miyoo Plus. Such an ideal machine. Looks like a time machine.” — Jamie

“I’m taking part in, and overwhelmingly impressed with, Prince of Persia: The Misplaced Crown. It appears like a love letter to Castlevania and Metroid, and closely impressed by Hole Knight… but in addition innovates in some actually intelligent methods. It additionally runs extremely nicely on the Swap.” — Steve

“Most likely one of the used apps on my cellphone is Mela, by Silvio Rizzi. It’s a thoughtfully designed recipe app designed to share with your loved ones. It has a shared household recipe library and integrations with Reminders and Calendar to make sure my fiancé and I are at all times on the identical web page. Oh, and it additionally has a built-in RSS reader for locating new recipes!” — Liam

“It’s referred to as What Occurred Final Week, and it’s an effective way to maintain up with information from international locations that aren’t typically reported on in locations like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It comprises clear explanations and contexts on developments so it’s straightforward to learn even in case you have by no means heard of the names within the story. I discover it actually helpful and complementary to the large Western information sources.” — Richard

“Windows95Man is Finland’s entry to Eurovision this yr, and it’s superb on so many layers. Watching the video on YouTube is obligatory for full appreciation.” — Sighjinks

“The brand new season of Sport Changer on Dropout began this week, and it’s a deal with as at all times!” — Noah

The largest, weirdest tech story of this weekend is coming from a barely stunning place: the ground of the NBA All-Star Sport. Have you ever seen the movies of the all-LED full-court display? Right here’s an instance of what this type of factor seems like throughout a sport, too. It seems like a complete nightmare to play on, and I’d guess $10 we’ll by no means see this in an actual sport with any stakes. However boy is it going to be one thing to observe. That is my sort of augmented actuality.