Apple News Plus is getting crossword puzzles with iOS 17

Apple’s upcoming iOS 17 update will add daily crossword puzzles to the Apple News app, but only for News Plus subscribers, the company said on its iOS 17 preview website. The addition of crosswords could make News Plus a more enticing subscription offering — right now, the main benefits to News Plus are access to digital versions of publications and audio versions of some articles.

Interestingly, adding crossword puzzles will put the Apple News app in even closer competition with The New York Times. The NYT is famous for its own crossword puzzles, which you can access in both the main NYT app and NYT Games app, and similar to what’s coming for Apple News, the full NYT crossword is only available in those apps with a paid subscription. However, in the NYT’s apps, you can play other games like the mini crossword and Wordle for free.

Apple’s website doesn’t include any images of what its planned crosswords might look like, and we don’t know if Apple is making them in-house or sourcing them from other crossword makers. The company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.