Apple News+ introduced Quartiles, a new original spelling game where players form words by selecting tiles containing 2-4 letters from a 4x5 grid. It is available with iOS 17.5 or later for News+ subscribers.
Seemed inevitable that even Apple would need to adopt engagement tactics to get people to keep using (and paying for) the Apple News+ subscription.
If the New York Times was willing to pay $1M for Wordle, then Apple had to follow suit.