Touchscreens everywhere!

October 31, 2026 · by TPW Pipeline

Plus, in this week’s Installer: A new place to read books, a huge new game for iOS, an impressive new robovac, and more.

by David PierceOct 31, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 150, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy Halloween, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I was in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee on a family vacation. It was delightful (and the reason this week’s Installer is a little short). I’ve also been reading about job hunting and 30 Rock and crypto detectives, testing the DuckDuckGo browser after a bunch of you told me to add it to the list, watching the adorable new Pixar short over and over, getting caught up on VisionQuest, playing with my new Pebble Index 01 now that it finally arrived, listening to music on my rad-looking new CMF Speaker S, and eating a worrying number of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

I also have for you some new gear from Apple and Amazon, a better way to read books on your phone, a resurrected note-taking app, an absurdly expensive robovac, and much more. Let’s do it.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / listening to / playing / giving to trick-or-treaters 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.)

The new iPad Mini. With apologies to the touchscreen iMac, this is the most intriguing new Apple product of the week. I, too, am annoyed that there’s no ProMotion screen, but I’m excited about thinner and lighter, and I’m very excited about the idea of a functionally water- and dustproof tablet.
The Alexa Photo Frame. The Echo Show 16 is a cool smart home hub, but $500 is just too much for me. But a $200 digital photo frame that is also, sometimes, only when you need it, a smart home hub and timer-setter? That will end up in my living room. And my parents’. And my in-laws’.
nvAlt. One of the all-time great note-taking apps got its first update in forever, and now it can run on modern Macs. (The developer is also working on nvUltra, which is in beta and even better.) If you’re a plain-text notetaker, you’re gonna want to get back into this app.
Chromagraph. The director Rian Johnson — yes, that one — worked with his favorite cinematographer to make it possible to process iPhone photos the way they like best. An extremely opinionated camera app from people who have very much earned those opinions. I love it.
“I love the iPod. It ruined everything.” This Mic The Snare video is both a very good history of the iPod and a surprisingly cogent theory that the iPod is to blame for some of the worst things about modern life. I still miss my gold iPod Mini.
Readwise Books. A really nice-looking, really powerful app for buying, reading, and tracking your books. Right now it’s a little bit “better Kindle” and a lot “better Goodreads.” So far I’m mostly using the social feed to get recommendations from strangers, which suits me just fine. This went right onto my Boox Palma homescreen.
Phantom Blade Zero. Currently burning up the Steam charts, this one. People love the martial arts-inspired combat system and the game’s overall aesthetic, and I’m even hearing good things about the music.
No Man’s Sky. This is definitely one of the biggest and most ambitious games to ever come to iOS (and all it took was a decade!). It works on pretty much all recent iPhones and iPads, too. Just don’t be fooled by the Free sign at the top; the game costs $20. But it’s worth it.
The Matic Serene. Two things here. One, $1,700 is an a
Source: www.theverge.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.

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