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iPad Mini and Kindle Colorsoft are reading gadgets worth upgrading for

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iPad Mini and Kindle Colorsoft are reading gadgets worth upgrading for

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 57, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy Kindle Season to all who celebrate, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I’ve been reading about sports betting and designer proteins and the Ford Bronco, listening to Bon Iver’s new Sable and Brian Eno’s old Music for Airports on repeat, watching Archer and Unstable, desperately trying to find a better controller for the Nintendo Switch, and finally seriously making plans to build a whole seltzer system into my kitchen counter. It’s just time.

I also have for you an unusually gadget-heavy week: new Kindles, new iPads, new retro game consoles, and much more. Oh, and I forgot to mention this last week, but The Verge is hiring for a couple of really cool jobs, including a senior tech editor and a deputy editor overseeing our reviews and commerce programs. You should apply! Can confirm this is an awesome place to work. And if you have questions about either role, hit me up.

Anyway, gadget time. Let’s do it.

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(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / playing / reading / trying this week? What should everyone else be into as much as you are? 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 Drop

  • The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. I suspect the new Paperwhite will actually be the right new Kindle for most people (and it is really nice), but there’s something about the color model that is just so enticing. Particularly if you’re a comics reader, this thing looks like a winner.
  • The new iPad Mini. I’ve always hoped Apple would decide to do something awesome and new with the iPad Mini. And Apple never does. But I love the Mini all the same, and at the very least, this one is a thoroughly modern iPad that can do every iPad thing. I’ll take that.
  • The DJI Air 3S. The new midrange drone in DJI’s lineup has a bunch of nice upgrades but really only one purpose: to work well in the dark. The 3S is built to fly safer, capture better images, and return home more easily, all without being able to see very well. It sounds very fun and also like a very good way to prank your friends. I’m just saying.
  • The Sonos Arc Ultra. Yeah, the app sucks, but Sonos still makes great-sounding stuff. And I think if you’re going to buy one piece of home stereo gear, a soundbar is the way. If the surround-sound tech works half as well as the company says, this one’s a winner.
  • The Analogue 3D. I have been waiting for Analogue’s Nintendo 64 console for what feels like forever, and this 4K upscaling machine is exactly what I hoped it’d be. It doesn’t ship until next year, and you can’t preorder it until Monday, but I’m telling you now because I’d bet good money it’ll sell out in a hurry.
  • Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara. Maybe I’m still in a 2004-y mood, so anything Tegan and Sara catches my eye, but this is a wild story: about a specific identity theft, about what happens when fandom gets weird, and so much more.
  • Eater for iOS. This is exactly what I can never get Google Maps to be: just a million maps of cool, good restaurants. Eater’s taste often skews a little fancy and expensive, but I’ve rarely gone wrong trusting its recommendations. (I suppose I should disclose that Eater is part of Vox Media, as is The Verge, but also I just really like this app so far.)
  • Shrinking season 2. One of my favorite shows of the last few years is back! If you haven’t watched the first season of this show that is somehow both very bleak and very funny, you should. And then you should watch the second season immediately and tell me all your thoughts. I’ll be ready.
  • Super Mario Party Jamboree. I think Mario Party 64 might be my all-time most-played video game. (It’s either that or GoldenEye.) This new entrant in the series adds lots of new minigames and some really fun-looking new boards — it looks like a perfect group game. 

Screen share

I think it’s still the case that Adi Robertson is the employee at The Verge who has worn the most AR and VR headsets. Is that a cool distinction or a horrifying one? Who knows! But the internet is filled with pictures of Adi wearing face-puters. Now, she runs our policy desk and is thinking an awful lot about how we ought to regulate, use, and make sense of all the technology in our lives. Also something about an election in a few weeks? Not sure what that’s about.

Here’s Adi’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:

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The phone: Samsung Galaxy S24.

The wallpaper: My lockscreen is a rotating slideshow of my seven-month-old because I am That Mom now. My homescreen is the Continuous Monument, which is a satirical sci-fi architecture concept from the 1970s avant-garde firm Superstudio — it’s part of a series of illustrations of a huge, sterile, grid-like arcology lacing across the entire world. Sort of like a huge version of Saudi Arabia’s The Line project, except nobody was supposed to actually build it.

The apps: Libby, Google Authenticator, Amazon, The New York Times, Simplenote, Google Messages, Bluesky, Feedly, Slack, Clock, Camera, LastPass, Paprika, Phone, Wikipedia, Google Photos, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Stash2Go, Okta Verify, LibraryThing, Files, Spotify, Signal, Gmail, Firefox, Google Maps.

I have a lot of inertia in my homescreen; I kept Google Hangouts on there for months after it shut down. I also added some stuff after becoming a parent — I ordered from Amazon maybe twice a month until I had a tiny creature constantly going through diapers and formula and random items I didn’t realize babies needed.

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Libby: While I fully support the idea of library-managed controlled digital lending, I can’t deny the convenient pipeline of borrowing a book from the New York and Brooklyn public libraries through Libby and having it appear instantly on my Kobo reader. You got me, public-private tech partnerships. Sometimes you’re good.

Paprika: In an era of link rot and paywalls, this is the best service I’ve found for opening a recipe on the internet, downloading a personal copy, and keeping it permanently on my phone for reference. (There’s also a desktop version.) It’s simple, no-nonsense, and includes a calendar for planning meals and an easy grocery list feature.

Stash2Go: I don’t knit as much as I used to (infants and giant needles present some obvious problems), but I’m an avid Ravelry user, and when I started knitting, this was the best third-party app I found. It maintains most of the site’s powerful pattern search options while letting me upload pictures of my projects.

Bluesky: When Twitter’s user base started splintering, I wasn’t sure Bluesky would make it! But my initial choice, Mastodon, started feeling like a chore — I’m happy for the people who love it and I hope it flourishes, my feed just filled up with one too many arguments over the ideological valence of search options and quote posts. At this point, some of my favorite Twitter communities (like tech policy Twitter) have migrated to Bluesky, and it’s become a good way to keep up with what’s going on.

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LibraryThing: With absolutely no disrespect to the creator of LibraryThing: I do not like LibraryThing. I do not like the complicated sorting and annotation features I never use. I do not like that, half the time, adding a book to my library requires restarting the app. But I like keeping track of the books I’ve read, and Goodreads — with its review bombing, its harassment potential, its attempts to make me share my reading history — just feels gross. If you have a less janky alternative, please let me know.

Feedly: I keep up with news and essays on RSS. I got a Feedly account when Google Reader shut down. It works pretty well, and I’m happy with it. I am a simple woman, set in my ways.

Wikipedia: This is my Instagram. I’ve lost hours scrolling it. My current tabs include Charlotta Bass (the first Black woman to own and operate a US newspaper), Daigo Fukuryū Maru (the Japanese fishing boat, contaminated with radioactive fallout in the 1950s, that partially inspired Godzilla), and the 1995 Raven Software first-person shooter Hexen: Beyond Heretic, which I have never played.

I also asked Adi to share a few things she’s into right now. Here’s what she sent back:

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  • I’m currently reading The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville. I’ve barely started, but I generally like Keanu Reeves’ taste, and China Miéville is one of my favorite authors, so a collaboration between them is too delightful a prospect to miss.
  • I’m currently watching the long-awaited Adult Swim adaptation of Uzumaki. Like a lot of viewers, I enjoyed the first episode and felt a bit burned by the later animation quality decline, but so far, it’s doing a pretty good job of compressing a massive volume of creeping horror into a few hours of anime.
  • I’ve just finished playing Dredge, a cozy fishing game about catching eldritch abominations to find arcane artifacts that will bring about the end of the world. I could use some more variety in the minigames and side missions, but as premises go, it’s extremely my thing.

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 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 even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Threads.

“I’ve found and been playing a whole lot of Codenames, a new app version of the board game. It is incredibly well-thought-out, with lots of fun variations and cool ideas. It’s also a one-time purchase, which I really appreciate!” – Joel

“Some former Pitchfork folks started their own thing called Hearing Things and started it off with a killer playlist of the best music of the decade so far. And before anyone asks — yes, they do have a ‘blog’ section.” – Christine

“I just finished Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four. It has to be the weirdest, most unique crime fiction I’ve ever read. Highly recommend it.” – Laszlo

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“I really like DuckDuckGo AI Chat, which includes the ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, and Mixtral models, where chats are private and are never saved or used to train AI models. As a privacy-focused user, I find this really helpful.” – Shyam

“Charli XCX’s Brat remix album — the hottest guest lineup since the pandemic.” – Dariusz

“It’s dumb, overpriced, and over-engineered. I just got three of these Simplehuman trash cans for my bathrooms. It’s built like a tank, and these things will go with me to my grave.” – Brian

“Here’s a fun game you should look into: the studio is called Rusty Lake, and they have 15–20 point-and-click games that all are connected to an overall story. It deals with murder, reincarnation, and family, and they’re really good! I would start with Paradox because that’s the one I started with.” – Levi

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“Discovered Netflix has a Minesweeper in their games catalog. It’s nothing special, but it’s a solid, polished version of the game, and it’s been my default mobile game for the last week.” – Justin

“Been on an Ursula K. Le Guin kick and reading The Dispossessed. It goes deep into thinking what a society based on anarchist principles would be like, plus tons of mid-century sci-fi goodness.” – Richard

Signing off

I’m sure (or at least I hope) I’m the 9,000th person to tell you to watch Cabel Sasser’s talk from the XOXO conference this year. Honestly, most of the talks from XOXO are great if you care about the internet and creativity and art and stuff, but Sasser’s was my favorite. I promise you will never guess where it’s going, and I promise it’s worth the journey. I’m working on seeing the world more like Wes Cook.

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Technology

Sony tipped to finally launch first new full-frame camera of 2024 soon – here’s what it could be

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Sony Alpha A1

Sony‘s camera department has had an unusually quiet year. For the entirety of 2024, we’ve seen just one new Sony mirrorless camera. And, as impressive as the Sony ZV-E10 II is with its 26MP APS-C sensor and 4K video features, the sub $1,000 beginner video camera – that’s an iterative update – isn’t much for Sony fans to get excited about.

As TechRadar’s Cameras Editor, I can’t remember Sony ever being so quiet, In fact, I had started to pen a piece about Sony’s inactivity – surely it couldn’t just be related to reported global supply chain issues, could it? Turns out, I may have to stand down, at least if the latest rumors are true.

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Creature Commandos trailer introduces James Gunn’s DC Universe

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Creature Commandos trailer introduces James Gunn’s DC Universe

A new DC Universe is on its way, and comic book fans have finally gotten their first substantial look at it. The multimedia franchise isn’t set to kick things off with one of its flagship heroes like Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman, either. Instead, the DCU’s first official entry belongs to an oddball mix of monsters known as the Creature Commandos. Created and written by James Gunn, Creature Commandos promises to bridge the gap between 2021’s The Suicide Squad, 2022’s Peacemaker, and the DCU’s future.

Now, over a year after Gunn announced Creature Commandos, the animated series’ first official trailer has debuted online. The teaser, which runs over two minutes long, efficiently introduces several of Creature Commandos‘ core characters, including The Bride (Indira Varma), Nina Mazursky (Zoë Chao), G.I. Robot (Sean Gunn), Weasel (also Sean Gunn), and Doctor Phosphorus (Alan Tudyk).

It offers fans a glimpse of the show’s zany tone and hyper-violent, gory edge as well, and even boasts a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from one fan-favorite Batman villain. You can check out the full trailer for yourself below.

Creature Commandos | Official Trailer | Max

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In addition to its crew of wacky monsters, Creature Commandos will prominently feature a returning, now-animated Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) and Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the grizzled leader of the show’s titular team and the father of Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), who is tragically killed in The Suicide Squad. It is Rick Flag Sr. who can be seen at the trailer’s 1:50 mark engaging in a fight with none other than Clayface, too.

The Batman villain’s inclusion in Creature Commandos comes as a major surprise, and it offers some further insight into just how established Batman and his rogue gallery may already be in the DCU by the time the animated series begins. The show will reportedly pick up after the events of Peacemaker season 1 and will follow Davis’ Amanda Waller as she’s forced to put together a new team of non-humans to take on her various secret missions.

As part of their non-negotiable commitment to Waller, it looks like the Creature Commandos are going to run into some pretty noteworthy DC villains. Fans will, however, have to wait for Creature Commandos‘ December premiere to learn more about not only Clayface’s role in the series, but also what its eponymous team’s missions ultimately entail.

Creature Commandos premieres December 5 on Max.

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iPhone 17 Pro models may get notable zoom camera improvement

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iPhone 17 Pro models may get notable zoom camera improvement

While the iPhone 16 series has just hit the market, the industry is not stopping, and the next generation of iPhones is already in the works. The iPhone 17 series is still in the early stages of development, so there are still decisions to be made. However, some key specs have already been set. According to a reputable analyst, the iPhone 17 Pro models will get a notable camera upgrade.

New front and telephoto cameras for the iPhone 17 Pro models

Next year, Apple is expected to restructure its smartphone launch strategy. The company will replace the iPhone 17 Plus with a super-slim “iPhone 17 Air” (tentative name). Market research has revealed a declining trend in popularity for the iPhone Plus models, leading Apple to discontinue them. Now, according to Jeff Pu, both the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max will receive new 48 MP ultra-wide and 24 MP front-facing cameras.

Most of Jeff Pu’s tips have come true, so he’s a highly credible source. The analyst revealed the information about the new cameras in a research note with investment bank Haitong International. Pu also claimed that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max will have 12GB of RAM. For comparison, the current iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max feature 12MP telephoto and front cameras, along with 8GB of RAM. The new sensors could enable better-quality for selfies and photos with optical zoom.

Thinner Dynamic Island on iPhone 17 Pro Max

The next-generation iPhone 17 Pro Max could bring a noticeable improvement in terms of design. The analyst claims that Apple is working on a “much narrowed Dynamic Island” thanks to the implementation of smaller “metalens” for the Face ID biometric system. Apple debuted the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 series and has kept the size the same ever since. However, it seems that the iPhone 17 Pro devices will finally bring a bit more usable screen space.

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Pu expects the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max to maintain the same screen sizes as the current generation. That is, 6.3 inches and 6.9 inches, respectively. Both models will be powered by the Bionic A19 Pro chip manufactured on TSMC’s 3 nm process.

More iPhone 17 Air details

The report includes information related to the iPhone 17 Air that could arrive next year. Pu backs up previous leaks that claimed the device would have only a 48MP rear camera, adding that it will receive the new 24MP front camera too. The phone would feature a 6.6-inch display, 8GB of RAM, and the Dynamic Island. The iPhone 17 Air could use the 3 nm Bionic A19 chip that will also be present in the vanilla iPhone 17. Additionally, it would introduce Apple’s first 5G modem.

Taking into account Apple’s background, the iPhone 17 series should arrive in September 2025. With so much time remaining, some details could still change. However, these leaked specs are likely to mostly match what we’ll see in the final products.

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Super Nintendo World Orlando opens next May

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The Super Nintendo World theme park in Orlando is nearly ready for visitors. Universal Orlando Resort just announced that the Mario-friendly attraction will open its doors on May 22, 2025. That gives you over six months to find the perfect Goomba costume to wear on opening day.

This is the third Nintendo theme park throughout the world, as the Orlando location joins pre-existing parks in Los Angeles and Japan. If the layout looks anything like the other two parks, you should expect a large interactive area to explore, special themed rides and, of course, all kinds of Nintendo-adjacent dining and shopping. The original Japanese park just got a nifty Donkey Kong Country area, and Nintendo confirmed earlier this year that it would come to Orlando as well.

This is part of a larger expansion of Universal Resort Orlando, called Universal Epic Universe. This includes five areas to explore. There’s the aforementioned Super Nintendo World, but this expansion will also host the pre-existing Harry Potter attraction.

The area will be home to a theme park based on the How to Train Your Dragon franchise and another based on the Dark Universe franchise. That last one is pretty odd to me, being as how the Dark Universe franchise peaked with a few middling horror films in the 2010s. Most of the planned films in this shared cinematic universe were scrapped after 2017’s The Mummy crashed and burned.

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Finally, there’s Celestial Park. This looks to be a standard amusement park with a slight sci-fi bent. There are space-themed roller coasters and the like.

Correction, October 18 2024, 8:45AM ET: This story originally stated that it wasn’t clear if the Donkey Kong Country attraction was coming to Orlando. Nintendo had announced that it would be in the Orlando park earlier this year.

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Science & Environment

Scientists say they’ve made a breakthrough in efforts to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger

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Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in efforts to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger


It’s been decades since Australia’s thylacine, known as the Tasmanian tiger, was declared extinct and scientists say they’ve made a breakthrough as they research ways to bring back the carnivore. 

Colossal Biosciences in a Thursday press release said its reconstructed thylacine genome is about 99.9% complete, with 45 gaps that they’ll work to close through additional sequencing in the coming months. The company also isolated long RNA molecules from a 110-year-old preserved head, which was skinned and kept in ethanol. 

“The thylacine samples used for our new reference genome are among the best preserved ancient specimens my team has worked with,” said Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer and the director of the UCSC Paleogenomics Lab, where the samples were processed. “It’s rare to have a sample that allows you to push the envelope in ancient DNA methods to such an extent.”

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Efforts to bring back the Tasmanian tiger

The preservation of a complete Tasmanian tiger head meant that scientists could study RNA samples from several important tissue areas, including the tongue, nasal cavity, brain and eye. It will allow researchers to determine what a thylacine could taste and smell, along with what type of vision it had and how its brain worked, according to Andrew Park, a member of Colossal’s Scientific Advisory Board and a researcher at the University of Melbourne’s TIGRR Lab.

“We’re getting closer every day to being able to place the thylacine back into the ecosystem – which of course is a major conservation benefit as well,” Pask said.

Pask, speaking with 60 Minutes earlier this year, said researchers were working with the closest living relative of the Tasmanian tiger — a small marsupial called the fat-tailed dunnart — as a way to bring the animal back. 

“But that little dunnart is a ferocious carnivore, even though it’s very, very small,” Pask said. “And it’s a very good surrogate for us to be able to do all of this editing in.”

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Scientists have been comparing the DNA of the dunnart and the thylacine, Pask told 60 Minutes. From there, it’s a matter of going in and editing the DNA to turn a fat-tailed dunnart cell into a thylacine cell.

Colossal Biosciences on Thursday said it had edited more than 300 unique genetic changes into a dunnart cell, making it “the most edited animal cell to date.”

“We are really pushing forward the frontier of de-extinction technologies,” Pask said, “from innovative ways of finding the regions of the genome driving evolution to novel methods to determine gene function. We are in the best place ever to rebuild this species using the most thorough genome resources and the best informed experiments to determine function.”

Efforts aiding the revival of the Tasmanian tiger are not confined to Australia. Last year, scientists recovered and sequenced RNA from a 130-year-old Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in Sweden’s Museum of Natural History. 

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How the Tasmanian tiger died off

Thylacines roamed Tasmania for thousands of years. Despite the Tasmanian tiger moniker, the carnivores were marsupials, like kangaroos, koalas and Tasmanian devils.

The local government in the late 1800s paid out bounties to hunters presenting carcasses of Tasmanian tigers because the animals had been eating farmers’ sheep, 60 Minutes previously reported. By the mid-1930s, the Tasmanian tiger population had dwindled to a single thylacine at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania’s capital. It died there in 1936.

Australia has similarly allowed the culling of Kangaroos, approving the deaths of thousands of kangaroos over the years. Officials have said the kangaroo population was eating through grassy habitats of endangered species. Officials have also warned in the past that there isn’t enough food available to sustain large kangaroo populations. 

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Apple’s macOS Sequoia lets you snap windows into position — here’s how

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Apple’s macOS Sequoia lets you snap windows into position — here’s how

For many a year, Windows users have been dragging their program windows over to the borders of the screen to snap them into position, splitting the screen up evenly into halves or quarters. Now, with the rollout of macOS Sequoia, Mac users can do the same. You can get a Spotify playlist up alongside your email inbox, for example, or a report you’re writing up alongside the online articles you’re reporting on. It means less switching between windows and more information on the screen.

Once you’ve got macOS Sequoia installed on your Mac, you can take advantage of what Apple calls window tiling. There are several methods you can use.

Get your apps into position with window tiling.
Screenshot: Apple

Alternatively, you can click and drag an open window into position to tile it. 

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The third method for window tiling is via the Window drop-down menu in whatever app you’re using.

You can also create tiles via your app’s Window drop-down menu.
Screenshot: Apple

If you want to keep your fingers on the keyboard, keyboard shortcuts are supported as well. (Note: unfortunately, there aren’t any specific keyboard shortcuts for moving windows into the quarter sections of the screen.)

Here’s the list for controlling individual windows:

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There are also shortcuts for moving the active window and arranging other windows to match:

macOS gives you a few ways to customize your tiling settings.
Screenshot: Apple

You can customize a few aspects of window tiling using System Settings on the Apple menu. Choose Desktop & Dock to find them. You can turn drag-to-tile and the Option key shortcut on or off and choose whether tiled windows have margins between them.

Several third-party tools have previously filled the feature gap when it comes to window tiling, and generally speaking, they give you more options and more control than macOS Sequoia does, at least for now — they’re not completely Sherlocked yet.

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I can only speak firsthand about two that I’ve personally used. One is Magnet, which will set you back $9.99 but is very much worth it, especially if you use a larger display. You can divide the screen up by thirds and sixths as well as halves and quarters and set up trigger areas for dragging and custom keyboard shortcuts.

The other is Rectangle; the basic version is free, but if you pay $9.99 for the Pro version, you can customize snap areas and keyboard shortcuts, set up specific layouts for specific apps, and pin certain program windows into position. It’s packed with every feature you could possibly want, though I think Magnet is a little more intuitive to use.

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