Light, the company behind the minimalist Light Phone, has announced the Light Flip, a $299 device designed not to replace a user’s primary smartphone but to encourage occasional disconnection. The flip phone features a simple, blocky design and is slated to ship in early next year. Preorders are now open.
To mark the launch, Light CEO and cofounder Kai Tang shared insight into his personal phone setup with The Verge’s Installer newsletter. Tang uses a Light Phone III, which forgoes a traditional wallpaper in favor of a matte black or light grey screen. “I like my phone visually muted,” he said.
His home screen includes only six tools: Phone, Alarm, Weather, Directions, Music, and Language. While the first five are standard, the Language tool is a custom feature created for a 2023 collaboration with Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar’s creative company pgLang. It functions as a digital Magic 8 Ball: shaking the device yields random, cryptic responses like “ask again, but less aggressive” or “I’d rather not say.” Though it was only available on a limited-edition device that quickly sold out, Tang keeps it installed for sentimental reasons.
Beyond the CEO’s own habits, this week’s Installer roundup highlighted several other tech and media picks from the community. Among them: a voice-acted deduction game The Incident at Galley House, the Netflix comedy The Hawk starring Will Ferrell, and the audiobook The New Guys about NASA’s shuttle astronauts. On the app front, Android users celebrated Candela Camera, a $5 film-simulation tool that properly uses the Android camera API, and Open Minis, which lets iOS users run agentic AI tasks directly on their phones.
David Pierce, the newsletter’s author, also invited readers to share their recommendations via email or Signal, continuing the Installer’s community-driven format.
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