iPhone

Apple News+ subscribers get access to a new Quartiles puzzle every day. Players select tiles containing two to four letters from a four-by-five grid to form words, and you can use up to four tiles per word.

The more tiles you use, the more points you score. A word formed from four tiles is called a Quartile and is worth 8 points, and when you find all five Quartiles, you receive an additional 40 points. The object of the game is to earn the 100 points necessary to reach the Expert rank, but you can keep forming words and accumulating points after that, too.

Note: Apple News, Apple News+, and puzzles aren’t available in all countries or regions.

Play Quartiles

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a Quartiles puzzle.
3. Tap tiles to create a word and then tap the Enter button to enter it.

   For example, to score a single point, tap “pear,” then tap the Enter button. To score 2 points, tap “ap,” then “pear” to form the word, “appear.” Go for 4 points by tapping “ap,” “pear,” then “ance.” Complete the Quartile and score 8 points by spelling “disappearance.”

   Completed words appear in the Words Found box, and any Quartiles you find appear in groups of four tiles.

   Not all possible words qualify in Quartiles puzzles. For example, obscure and technical terms, proper nouns, and profanity never appear in the word list.

4. Do any of the following:
   • Reorder your tiles: After you tap the tiles to place them above the grid, you can touch and hold. Then drag to reorder them.
   • See points needed to move to the next rank: Tap Next Rank.
   • Clear tiles you don’t want to use: Tap the Remove button.
   • See how many words remain: When you reach the Expert rank, the Words Found box shows how many words you haven’t found.
   • See each word’s points: Tap the Expand button in the Words Found box.

Quick tip: For a quick Quartiles tutorial, tap the More button and tap How to Play. Or tap More Puzzles to open the Quartiles puzzle feed.

Shuffle or group tiles

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a Quartiles puzzle and start finding words.
3. Quartiles you find are anchored to the bottom of the grid. If you’d rather anchor them to the top of the grid, tap the More button. Then choose Sort Found Quartiles.
4. Tap the Shuffle button to shuffle tiles that aren’t part of found Quartiles.
5. To shuffle all tiles in the grid, tap the Arrangement button to turn off anchoring. Tap the Shuffle button.

Reveal all words

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a Quartiles puzzle.
3. Tap the More button and tap Reveal All Words. The words you didn’t find are shown.
   • If you reveal before you reach Expert rank: The puzzle doesn’t count in your Scoreboard stats and streaks.
   • If you reveal after you reach Expert rank: Your stats or streaks aren’t affected.

If you subscribe to Apple News+, you can access daily and archived crossword, crossword mini, Quartiles, sudoku, and Emoji Game puzzles. Some puzzles may be available without a subscription.

You can view the Puzzles feed, follow a puzzle type, choose a puzzle, view puzzle stats and streaks, compete with others, and share a puzzle with friends. For quick access to one type of puzzle, you can follow it and even make it a favorite.

Note: Apple News, Apple News+, and puzzles aren’t available in all countries or regions.

View the Puzzles feed

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Do one of the following:
   • Tap Following , then tap Puzzles (below Sections).
   • Tap Today, scroll down, then tap the Puzzles group.

Follow a puzzle type

Want quick access to a specific type of puzzle? Add it to Following.

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. View the Puzzles feed, as described above.
3. Tap Crossword, Crossword Mini, Quartiles, Sudoku, or Emoji Game.
4. Tap the More button, then tap Follow.

In Following, a Puzzles category appears, with the puzzle type below it.

To make it a favorite, tap Edit, tap the Add Favorite button next to the puzzle type, then tap the Done button.

Note: Apple News+ subscribers can have puzzles in the Puzzles feed and puzzle type feeds download automatically, then play them in Offline Mode.

Choose a puzzle

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Go to one of the following areas to find a puzzle:
   • The Today feed
   • The Puzzles feed
   • The feed for a puzzle type (crossword, crossword mini, Quartiles, sudoku, or Emoji Game)
3. Tap a puzzle to open it.

Crossword and sudoku puzzles each have a difficulty rating: easy, moderate, or challenging.

You can see more past puzzles in each puzzle type’s complete archive. Scroll down in the puzzle type’s feed, then tap the Right Arrow button next to Archive.

Quick tip: Tap the Filter button to sort or filter a puzzle archive.

View puzzle stats and streaks

You can find the Scoreboard in each puzzle feed, and it includes:

• Statistics for each puzzle type—the number of puzzles solved, for example
• Your current streak—the number of consecutive days you solved the daily puzzle
• Your longest streak

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Choose the feed for a puzzle type and then swipe up.

Conditions that affect stats include the following:

• If you use the Reveal command to show all or a portion of a puzzle, the puzzle won’t count toward your stats, and completing the puzzle won’t start or continue a streak.
• Puzzles you complete on a device with iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, macOS 14.5, or later count toward your stats. Any puzzles you played on older OS versions don’t count toward your stats.
• After you open the News app on a device with iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, macOS 14.5, or later, any daily puzzles you complete on a device with an earlier version of the OS are added to your streak. For example, if you complete Monday’s crossword and Tuesday’s crossword on your iPhone with iOS 17.5, and then solve Wednesday’s crossword on your iPad with iPadOS 17.4, your streak is extended.
• Players in the contiguous U.S. and Canada must complete a puzzle within 24 hours of its publication for it to count toward a streak.
• Players in Alaska and Hawaii must complete the day’s puzzle before midnight local time.
• To start or maintain a sudoku streak, solve at least one of the current day’s sudoku puzzles of any difficulty level without revealing answers.

If you’re signed in to the same Apple Account on all your Apple devices, your stats and streaks stay up to date on each one.

1. Open Settings and tap your name. Tap iCloud.
2. Tap See All (in the Saved to iCloud section) and turn on News.

Compete with others

To compete against friends and other puzzle solvers in the Apple Games app and Game Center, you’ll also need to turn on Game Center in News.

Set up your Game Center profile.

1. Start the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap Apps, then tap News.
3. Turn on Game Center.

Each puzzle type has a leaderboard in Game Center where your scores appear, and sudoku has one for each difficulty level. And you can challenge friends to solve sudoku, crossword, crossword mini, and Emoji Game puzzles.

Share a puzzle

Send another Apple News+ subscriber a link, and they can solve the puzzle too.

1. Start the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a puzzle.
3. Tap the More button, tap Share, and then choose Messages, Mail, or another sharing option.

Your answers aren’t shown, but the following information is shared for completed puzzles:

• Crossword, crossword mini, and sudoku: The time it took you to solve the puzzle
• Quartiles: Your rank
• Emoji Game: The number of moves you used to solve the puzzle

Apple News+ subscribers get access to a new crossword and crossword mini puzzle every day. Crossword puzzles start out easy but get increasingly challenging as the week goes on, and when you want a puzzle you can solve in next to no time, there’s the always-easy crossword mini.

You can navigate and solve both kinds of puzzles in multiple ways. For example, you can display puzzles in the traditional grid view, or show clues and answers in a list instead. You can select words by square or choose clues from a list.

You don’t have to solve puzzles all at once, either. You can return to a puzzle at any time, and the timer pauses while you’re away.

Note: Apple News, Apple News+, and puzzles aren’t available in all countries or regions.

Solve in grid view

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap a square to show the clue below the puzzle and then use the keyboard to enter the answer. You move to other squares as you type. You can also tap \< or > next to the clue to move to the previous or next clue.

With the keyboard showing, switch from across to down, or vice versa, by tapping the selected square again or tapping the clue.

To hide the keyboard and show a scrollable list of all the clues, tap the Hide Keyboard button. Tap a clue to show the keyboard and select the corresponding answer in the grid.

Solve in list view

Clues and answers can appear in a list rather than the traditional grid.

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap the List View button.
4. Tap Across or Down to switch to the crossing set of clues.

Tap the Grid View button to return to grid view.

Get hints and answers

If you’re unsure of an answer you entered, you can get a little help.

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap the Puzzles Options button. Do any of the following:
   • Mark incorrect answers: Tap Autocheck, Check Square, Check Word, or Check Puzzle.
   • Reveal answers: Tap Reveal, then tap Square, Word, or Puzzle to display the correct answer.

Note: Revealing all or a portion of a puzzle means it won’t count toward your Scoreboard stats or as part of a streak.

Some puzzles highlight clues that reference other clues. You can turn off these highlights. Tap the More button, tap Settings, then turn off Highlight Linked Clues.

Crossword grids sometimes include circles, and the letters in them relate to that puzzle’s theme.

Always use Autocheck

When you turn on Autocheck inside a puzzle, it stays on for that puzzle only. If you want Autocheck to stay on all the time, follow these steps:

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap the More button, tap Settings, turn on Always Autocheck, and tap the Close button
4. Tap the Puzzles Options button, then tap Autocheck.

Autocheck stays on for all puzzles of that type until you turn it off.

Restart your puzzle

If you’d like to start over, clear a puzzle’s answers and reset the timer.

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap the Puzzles Options button and then tap Clear Puzzle.

Change how you move around the puzzle

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Tap the More button and tap Settings. Choose what happens as you enter a letter or an answer:
   • Go to the next empty square: Select Skip Filled Squares.
   • Go to the next square, whether or not it’s filled in: Deselect Skip Filled Squares.
   • Go to the next clue: Next to At End of Word, choose Advance If Complete or Always Advance.
   • Don’t go to the next clue: Next to At End of Word, choose Don’t Advance.

Show or hide the timer

You can show or hide the timer that appears above your puzzle.

1. Open the News app on your iPhone.
2. Open a crossword or crossword mini puzzle.
3. Do one of the following:
   • Tap the Timer button.
   • Tap the More button, choose Settings, then turn Show Timer on or off.