iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5 and macOS 14.5 Sonoma, all currently in beta testing, feature a new word game called Quartiles, according to a new report. The game joins Apple News’ pair of daily crossword puzzles.
Quartiles word game coming to Apple News Puzzles section with iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5 and macOS 14.5
While the Puzzles section of Apple News+ came out with two daily crossword puzzles in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS 14 Sonoma, now a third puzzle game comes along for News+ subscribers, according to Gadget Hacks. The new game is called Quartiles.
In statistics, a quartile is a type of quantile that divides a set of data into four parts, or quarters. So the game divides words into parts for you to try to find and assemble for points. Four-part words are quartiles, but you scan score fewer points with smaller words, too.
How to play Apple’s new game
You can play by going to the Following tab, clicking on Puzzles and selecting the daily game Quartiles, which appears along with Crossword and Crossword Mini. A Quartiles tutorial explains that parts of a word are tiles, and you can make a word using anywhere from one to four tiles.
In the game, you start with 20 tiles arranged in a grid. You find words in the mix by putting tiles together. It can be one, two, three or four tiles in a row. Each puzzle contains five quartiles, with each one netting you eight points. If you find all five, you get a 40-point bonus, which gives you a total of 80 points.
However, before you reach those lofty heights, you will see that a one-word tile wins you one point, a two-word tile gives you two points and three-word tile nets you four points.
Verification, scoring and rankings
Once you assemble a word from tiles in the Quartiles word game, you click a checkmark to check and score it. The game will verify (or deny) it’s a word. You can also click a shuffle button to remix the tiles, which might help you spot words better.
You can see your total score above the word you made. And you can check your ranking by tapping the ellipsis (…) and clicking on Rankings. It will show you where in the five tiers of ranks you sit for that game. On the Quartiles homepage, you can click on a Leaderboards icon to see other people’s rankings.
Gadget Hacks also noted you can play Quartiles offline using the new automatic downloads option for puzzles in Apple News settings.
