Quartiles
Rate itJoin letter tiles into words and find the five Quartiles hidden in the grid.
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Quartiles is Apple's daily word game in the News app, added for Apple News+ subscribers in May 2024. A grid of twenty tiles holds chunks of two to four letters; you join up to four tiles into words, and a word made of four tiles is a Quartile. Reaching 100 points makes you an Expert, and you need an Apple News+ subscription to play.
About Quartiles
Quartiles is a daily word game made by Apple for Apple News+, added to the News app in May 2024 with iOS 17.5. It sits in the app's Puzzles section beside the crosswords and the other News+ games, and it needs a News+ subscription.
Each day's grid holds twenty tiles, and every tile carries a chunk of two to four letters. You build words by tapping one to four tiles in order. The more tiles a word uses, the more it scores, and five of the words in each grid split into exactly four tiles: those are the Quartiles. A Quartile is worth 8 points and finding all five earns 40 more, and reaching 100 points gives you the Expert rank, though you can keep looking for words after that.
There are no wrong guesses to lose and no clock, so a day can take five minutes or half an hour. Each Quartiles feed has a Scoreboard with your stats and current streak, and with Game Center turned on your scores go on a leaderboard. Past grids wait in the feed's archive, and News+ can download puzzles to play offline. Revealing all words before you reach Expert keeps that day out of your stats and streak.
It suits players who like Spelling Bee and other score-chasing word hunts, and anyone who already pays for Apple News+ and wants a short daily word game on an iPhone, iPad or Mac.
How to play Quartiles
- Open the News app and go to Puzzles (on a Mac, Puzzles in the sidebar), then open today's Quartiles.
- Tap one to four tiles in the order you want, dragging them to reorder if needed, then tap the check to enter the word.
- Use more tiles per word to score more points: a word made of four tiles is a Quartile, worth 8 points.
- Find all five Quartiles for 40 bonus points, and use Shuffle to mix the tiles that are not yet in a found Quartile.
- Keep going until you reach Expert at 100 points; after that the Words Found box counts the words still left.
Screenshots
Tips
- Start with the long tiles; a four-letter chunk usually belongs to one of the Quartiles.
- Common prefixes and suffixes such as RE, UN, ING and TION are often tiles of their own.
- Every tile belongs to one of the five Quartiles, so the tiles left over after you find a few point straight at the rest.
- After you find the Quartiles, mix their pieces in new ways: many shorter words hide in them.
Questions
Is Quartiles free?
No. Quartiles is part of Apple News+, so you need a subscription to play.
Where can I play Quartiles?
In the Apple News app on iPhone, iPad and Mac, in the Puzzles section. There is no web version.
What is a Quartile?
A word made of exactly four tiles. Each daily grid hides five of them, and finding all five earns a bonus.
How often is there a new Quartiles puzzle?
Every day. Apple's guide says News+ subscribers get a new Quartiles puzzle every day, and past puzzles stay in the archive.
Do obscure words count?
No. Apple's guide says obscure and technical terms, proper nouns and profanity are never in the word list.
Ratings and reviews
Games like Quartiles
Spelling Bee
A daily word hunt from seven letters with ranks to climb, the same score chase as Quartiles' road to Expert
Emoji Game
Apple News+'s other in-house daily, in the same Puzzles section: drag emoji into gaps to finish three phrases
Blossom
A free daily from Merriam-Webster: make 12 words from seven letters, with longer words scoring more
Squaredle
Find every word in a small daily square of letters, the same open-ended search for all the words
Bongo
Arrange 25 letter tiles into five words for the highest score each day
Strands
A themed daily grid where every letter belongs to one of the hidden words, as every Quartiles tile does
Apple News+ Crossword
The daily 15x15 crossword in the same Apple News+ Puzzles section
Quartiles Game (quartilesgame.org)
Join tiles of two to four letters into words and find the five four-tile Quartiles.