NameDrop lets iPhone users exchange contact information by bringing two devices together. Here’s how to use the feature, customize what it shares, and fix the most common problems.

Apple introduced NameDrop in iOS 17 as part of a larger contact-sharing system built around Contact Posters. Instead of typing phone numbers manually, users can tap their iPhones together and choose whether to share or receive contact information.

It’s a simple gesture that feels like magic, at least when it works. Here’s how to use NameDrop and what might be going wrong when it doesn’t work as expected.

And don’t worry, NameDrop only shares your name, Contact Poster, and primary phone number and/or email address by default.

How to use NameDrop on iPhone

NameDrop is simple to use once both iPhones are configured correctly, although both devices need iOS 17 or later with AirDrop enabled. It is enabled and works by default if a user hasn’t changed any settings affecting the feature.

1. Unlock both iPhones and ensure the devices are showing something that can’t be shared, like the Lock Screen or Home Screen.
2. Hold the top edges of both iPhones close together for a second or two.
3. Wait for the NameDrop animation and Contact Poster preview to appear.
4. Tap Receive Only to get contact information or Share to exchange contacts.
5. Keep both iPhones close together until the transfer completes.

Locking either phone or turning off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi can interrupt the process before the sharing interface appears. If it doesn’t immediately work, check those settings on both devices.

The NameDrop feature isn’t easy to miss thanks to the glowing animation, haptics, and a full-screen Contact Poster preview on both devices. It is impossible to have contact details pulled from a device without the user’s knowledge or accidentally.

Since NameDrop relies on the same technologies as AirDrop or Apple Pay, users shouldn’t have to worry about the case they’re using. Modern cases account for NFC passthrough and other radio signals.

Proximity is important to initiate NameDrop, but once the options to share appear, the devices can be pulled away. Obviously, you can’t leave the room and expect to continue the process, but a couple of feet of distance while each user manages the share isn’t a problem.

How to use NameDrop on Apple Watch

Apple supports NameDrop between Apple Watch, iPhone, and other Apple Watches. The feature works similarly to the iPhone version, although the smaller display offers less visual feedback during the exchange.

As long as your devices are up to date and still have default settings for things like AirDrop, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, a tap will suffice to initiate NameDrop.

1. Bring the front of the Apple Watch near the top edge of the other user’s iPhone or Apple Watch.
2. Wait for the NameDrop animation and contact-sharing interface to appear automatically.
3. Approve the exchange and keep the devices close together until the transfer completes.

You’re only given a “Continue” or “Receive Only” option on Apple Watch, without the larger Contact Poster preview shown on iPhone. And again, the proximity is only needed to begin the interaction, and devices can be pulled away to interact with the prompts.

NameDrop works fine on Apple Watch, though there’s less of a preview

NameDrop on Apple Watch is fairly convenient, but a little awkward. It’s a great option if you’d like to exchange contact details without needing to pull your iPhone out of a backpack or purse.

How to create or edit a Contact Poster for NameDrop

It’s always a good idea to keep your personal contact card up to date, especially when considering NameDrop. You don’t want some old photo, random emoji you added to your name as a teen, or an embarrassing email address to be exchanged.

Contact Posters are worth checking before using NameDrop

While your name, phone number, and email are important parts of the contact card, your photo might be even more important. The circle avatar and larger Contact Poster are what people see when using NameDrop or when you call them.

Here’s how to manage your Contact Poster:

1. Open the Contacts app on iPhone.
2. Tap My Card at the top of the contacts list.
3. Tap Edit.
4. Tap your contact photo.
5. Choose and customize your Contact Poster and photo.
6. Turn on Name & Photo Sharing if you want to share your updated name, photo, and poster with others.
7. Choose Contacts Only for automatic sharing with saved contacts, or choose Always Ask if you want to approve sharing first.

Contact Posters have become a kind of profile picture for your Apple Account. While Apple Contacts still uses the old vCard system, it is a data point for many system features on iOS.

How to customize what NameDrop shares

You might have multiple phone numbers and email addresses and only want to share a specific one. Don’t worry, it’s quite simple to modify what’s shared with each use of NameDrop.

Make sure your Contact Poster and other Contacts data are up to date

Whenever you initiate NameDrop on iPhone, you’ll see your Contact Poster, name, and phone number or email displayed with the sharing options below. By your phone number/email, there will be a little “>” button.

Tapping that button will bring up a sheet with check boxes by each piece of shareable contact details. Choose exactly what you’d like to share with the individual before hitting “Share.”

That way, you can choose when you’d like to provide a business number versus a personal one, for example. Customized NameDrop selections are carried over to the next time you use NameDrop.

Information like your pronouns, address, birthday, and more is not shared via NameDrop. It is only your name, selected phone numbers or email addresses, and Contact Poster that are shared.

Why NameDrop sometimes opens AirDrop or SharePlay instead

Apple uses the same gesture for several iPhone sharing features. AirDrop, SharePlay, and NameDrop all depend on nearby device detection, so the same movement can sometimes trigger the wrong interface.

SharePlay is a common source of confusion when music, video, or another compatible app is active. iPhone may treat the nearby device as a possible shared media target before NameDrop appears.

AirDrop will appear when a shareable file, link, or other item is being displayed on iPhone.

If NameDrop isn’t working as expected, put your device to sleep and wake it again, then unlock it and try once more. To help avoid interference from other features, make sure both devices are on the Home Screen or Lock Screen before bringing them close together.

How to turn off NameDrop

NameDrop initially drew criticism after launch because some users worried that contact information would transfer automatically. The feature requires devices to be unlocked and prompts users for confirmation before any information is transferred; it is highly unlikely that contact data can be pulled unknowingly.

Easily turn off NameDrop and other proximity AirDrop functions

However, users who don’t want NameDrop or other proximity sharing can turn off the setting that starts these interactions. Apple places the control inside the AirDrop section of the Settings app.

1. Open the Settings app on iPhone.
2. Tap General.
3. Tap AirDrop.
4. Turn off Bringing Devices Together.

Turning off Bringing Devices Together prevents NameDrop and similar proximity-based sharing features from working. AirDrop itself can remain available, depending on separate AirDrop receiving settings.

NameDrop removes most of the friction from exchanging contact information between Apple devices. Apple still keeps users in control through approval prompts, Contact Poster settings, and AirDrop controls.

A recent report by the Climate Change Committee has warned that, as average temperatures rise, the UK is facing a new climate, and air conditioning will be needed in many homes to cope with it.

With a lot of old housing stock built for colder climates, many of our homes experience extreme heat, particularly with the growing number of heatwaves each year. It’s expected that by 2050, heatwaves will last longer and be hotter.

As the Climate Change Committee has set out, it’s not just air conditioning; passive options, such as shading, should also be considered. Passive options are often overlooked by the mainstream press, and I think there’s a general consensus that just installing air conditioning is the best option. It’s not. For the best effect, a combination of tactics is needed.

Stop the sun before it warms your house

I’ve got an extreme example: my garden office. My garden office is south-facing, and the front of it is entirely glass: French doors with two side windows. They’re double-glazed, so keep the heat in in winter, but in summer, or when the sun shines at all, they’re a massive problem.

The sun’s infrared penetrates through the glass and warms objects inside, and then the air, which has nowhere to escape. On a relatively cool but sunny day, say around 16°C, my office can easily be mid-20°C inside. On a very hot day, it gets insanely hot inside: I’ve seen it hit 48°C, and this can only get worse as temperatures increase.

Air conditioning would seem to be the answer, but it’s not as easy as you think. I’ve tried many portable air conditioning units, vented out of a sealed window, and they work while the weather is mild.

As soon as the temperatures rise and the sun shines directly in, air conditioning can slow the heat rise, but it can’t stop it, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment nicer.

I’ve used internal blinds and even UV film on the windows, but they’re largely pointless: once the heat is in, it’s trapped. The answer, I found, was to use external blinds. Rolling them down stops the sun from getting in and keeps the temperature to manageable levels; if it’s hot, then air conditioning can do its job and cool the room down when required, but I often find that I don’t need it.

Similarly, in my loft bedroom, the front of the house is south-facing, so the sun shines through the Velux and makes it too hot. At times, the handles are burning hot. I bought external sunshades, which fit to the outside of the Velux window, and reduce the heat through them.

Yes, I still need air conditioning when it gets very hot, but the shades reduce the amount of cooling that’s needed.

External shutters, rather than blinds, can be even better, and that’s what you tend to find in hot countries, as well as overlap shading. In my house, they’d be easy to use, as I have sash windows, so nothing protrudes.

Modern casement windows are harder, as they open outwards, so once they’re open, you can’t close any shutters. But there are plenty of external smart blinds that can be operated by remote and would work, since you can operate them with the windows closed.

Air conditioning is expensive to run

Although modern air conditioning systems use heat pumps for maximum efficiency, electricity costs make them expensive to operate. And the more heat they must deal with, the longer they have to run, increasing the cost.

More AC also means more pressure on the grid, and not all that power is clean power, contributing to more fossil fuels and more CO2.

There are calls from some places to combine air conditioning with solar panels, powering the units with clean, free energy, but this isn’t without its issues either. As discussed before, solar works well if you’ve got a south-facing roof; if you’re under shade, in a flat, or have an east/west roof, then you get little power, or it’s not worth having it at all.

There’s also a big difference between properly installed split-unit air conditioning and portable units. Split units, with the condenser unit outside, are much more efficient than portable units, and you can run multiple vents from one external unit.

Split air conditioning is more expensive to install, and there’s the issue of knowing where to put the sizable external unit. Going back to the issue of the UK having a lot of old housing stock, particularly Victorian terraces, there’s very little space to put the external unit.

In fact, one of my neighbours has just had air conditioning installed, and the large external compressor is outside the front door, covered but still clearly visible. In my house, I couldn’t have air conditioning installed, as there’s no space for the outside unit.

Then, there’s the issue of what to do if you want a heat pump installed for your hot water. Many split air conditioning units are air-to-air heat pumps, so they can cool or heat a room, but they won’t heat your radiators, underfloor heating or hot water.

It’s possible to get a system that will do everything, but they’re not common. So, in most cases, you could end up with a heat pump for hot water and a separate system for air conditioning. Where are all those units supposed to go?

Cools inside, hot outside

Air conditioning doesn’t cool a room by blowing out cold air; instead, these systems use a heat pump to move heat from one place to another. In this case, they draw heat in from inside and expel it outside, as explained in our guide to how portable air conditioners work.

So, all of the hot air inside your home is pumped to the outside environment. According to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), in urban areas with a lot of air conditioning units, the impact at night can be an increase of temperature by 2.5°C. So, as we cool our homes down, we heat the outside, which means there’s a need for more cooling, and so on.

RICS goes on to suggest that new buildings should adopt passive techniques to avoid overheating, and that leaving plenty of space for vegetation can help: trees are a good way to cool urban spaces and create shade.

Don’t aim for fridge-like temperatures and limit use

Once AC is available, people tend to use it more. And, people often want to cool rooms to very low levels, to get that icy-cold feel. Both of these are wrong. AC should be used when required, not when it feels nice, and higher target temperatures should be used.

I tend to set my portable AC to 23°C when I do use it on the very hottest nights. That’s cool enough to sleep in, and reduces how much power the AC unit uses.

There’s no single solution

Things are going to get hotter, and air conditioning is only part of the solution, but certainly not by itself. New buildings should be designed to be thermally efficient and reduce the reliance on air conditioning, while older buildings need help: better insulation and shading to stop the sun shining through large windows (natural and artificial via blinds).

These passive techniques can’t completely stop a house from getting too hot, but they do lower the maximum temperature they reach and, therefore, the amount of air conditioning that needs to be used.

Apple’s macOS Tahoe has been one of the most controversial and divisive Mac updates ever. After almost a year of use, not even including Apple Intelligence, some of its touted benefits haven’t worked out.

Maybe this is just how it always is. For instance, when macOS Big Sur was announced, it was a gigantic change for the Mac yet now you can’t even remember what was so new about it.

With macOS Tahoe, you do know that the chief new thing is the Liquid Glass redesign. It seems as if there are more critics of the design than there are proponents, but it’s probably more that most users don’t care enough to comment.

That is, they don’t have any reason to care. The menubar that was so different at first has been toned down enough that many people might well not notice.

There is the ability to turn all of the Dock’s icons transparent, but unless you know it’s there and you then go hunting for it, you won’t find that setting. Then if you do find it, you’ll find it again very quickly afterwards as you realise that transparent app icons are a bad idea.

macOS Tahoe review: From great to fine

I’ve had the odd thing where Liquid Glass has meant I’ve needed to shove a window to the left to see what I needed. But not enough that I can even remember examples to recreate.

One thing that particularly appealed to me about Liquid Glass, though, was the idea that it helped you focus on your work, that all of the Mac‘s menus and Dock were less obtrusive. It’s a great idea and since I use an ultra wide monitor that is quite narrow and stubby top to bottom, I expected to use this a lot.

I haven’t used it once. Now that the menubar is more back to how it was before, there’s no incentive to.

You can make Dock icons transparent, and there is no earthly reason to do so.

Liquid Glass is just fine on the Mac. I notice it more on the iPhone and the iPad, I tend not to consciously notice it on the Mac.

Which means that for me, I’m left with noticing all of the other aspects of macOS Tahoe, the ones that got far less attention. AppleInsider covered the five new features that at launch, seemed as if they could make us radically more productive.

They were:

• Clipboard history
• Spotlight Actions and Quick Keys
• Apple Intelligence in Shortcuts
• Live Activities
• Phone calls

Every one of these is genuinely useful and a very good addition to the Mac, except perhaps the Phone one. That’s actually the one I was most excited about, to the extent that I added buttons to my Stream Deck for answering and ending calls.

But those buttons worked through a Keyboard Maestro macro which looked for the green phone icon to answer, or the red one to hang up. And I can be sitting here with my actual iPhone ringing, my iPads, and my Apple Watch all yelling that I have a call, and my Mac Studio doesn’t care.

Phone calls or FaceTime, I don’t know what it is, but with either of them, it takes an age for the notification to appear. So long that practically every single time, my caller has given up before I can see a button to press.

This should have been my most-used feature, but it just isn’t good enough.

I could make outgoing calls, but then there was always some sound issue. I was never certain the person I was phoning would be able to hear me.

So to this day, the Phone app launches at login on my Mac Studio, and I keep quitting it. I must give it another go, or remove it from the login items list.

macOS Tahoe review: Clipboard history

That issue with the Phone could be something wrong somewhere with my Mac Studio, it may well be that it works better for you. Similarly, the macOS Tahoe clipboard history feature may be precisely what you need, but it hasn’t turned out to be useful for me.

This would be entirely because I have already been using third-party rivals, especially Alfred 5, for at least a decade.

Spotlight’s new Clipboard History is fantastic – unless you’re already using any of the many alternatives

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Apple’s version is exactly as useful in principle, in that it remembers what you copy and so later you can paste it somewhere. It doesn’t matter if you copied whatever it was right now or an hour ago, it doesn’t matter if you’ve copied other things since.

Whatever it is, as long as you’ve copied it, you can paste it later. Or you can if you do it within something like eight hours, as Apple wipes this memory then.

The idea is presumably that people work eight hours a day, but if you do more, it’s irritating. It’s also only in place because Apple’s clipboard history isn’t as intelligent as it should be about removing passwords you’ve copied.

Rival apps like Alfred 5 and Raycast are, they removes the password from your clipboard history after you’ve used it. And they do both have limits on how long back you can have copied something, but with Alfred 5, for instance, you can have it set to remember copied items up to three months.

Plus with Alfred 5, I can copy six different things from five different places, and then paste all of it somewhere with one go. Clipboard history is so useful that you want to go tell everyone about it, particularly if they’re Windows users.

So Apple making a clipboard history be part of macOS Tahoe is unquestionably great. If you’ve never used one before, if you don’t have one already, you’ve got one now and you’ll wonder how you did without it.

I’m just hoping that the next version of macOS will improve it.

macOS Tahoe review: Shortcuts and Apple Intelligence

Similarly, I am hoping that the next macOS will fix a bug that is in macOS Tahoe and has been in every release for some years.

I am an excessive user of tab groups in Safari, meaning with a few clicks I can have every tab and site open that I might need for AppleInsider work. If I then have a Writers’ Guild finance committee meeting, then with a few clicks I can have all of the agenda sites, the proposal papers, the accounts and so on.

Apple basically added just one Apple Intelligence action to Shortcuts, but it’s superb.

Tab groups mean you can have everything you need for the task at hand. Very importantly, they also mean that you do not have anything else, you solely see what you need.

It is a great feature, and there is a Shortcut that lets you switch between these tab groups. So, again, I could set up a Stream Deck button to take me straight to the AppleInsider tab group, and another for the Writers’ Guild.

You can do this, you can set up a Shortcut to do exactly this and precisely once, it worked. Every other time, the Shortcut fails with an “internal error.”

Fortunately, what does work in Shortcuts is the new Apple Intelligence action. That’s been enough to make me regard Apple Intelligence as much more useful than I had.

I’m a writer so the Writing Tools in Apple Intelligence are mostly worthless. I’m never going to get it to rewrite my work to make it more friendly or more professional.

There is a way to get it rewrite your work to be more threatening, which was briefly fun.

However, using this one addition to Shortcuts means that over the last year I have:

• Added a transcription Shortcut to my Dock
• Created a note-taking app that records audio
• Had that note app also summarise ramblings into specific tasks
• Automated turning lists like this into HTML ones

There are oddities, such as how if you run the same list of steps through the same Shortcut, you sometimes get totally wrong results. But still, the one new “Use Model” action in Shortcuts is superb.

macOS Tahoe review: Spotlight Quick Actions

Quick Actions in Spotlight are rather good, too. The idea is that you can call up Spotlight with Command-Space Bar, then click on the Actions section and choose from countless options.

Countless Mac features can now be accessed in Quick Actions

Those options include things like setting timers, which is what I use most often. But there’s also the ability to write messages or emails and have them be sent directly from Spotlight.

That doesn’t sound as great as it actually is. Because what it means is that you can write emails without opening Mail or Messages, and so without seeing everything that is waiting there for you.

Spotlight then has a Files option for making it quicker to find documents, but to my mind not especially faster than just a regular Spotlight search. It also has an Applications option, which opens up a grid view of what apps the Mac thinks you’re most likely to want to use next.

That exact same grid is now what appears when you click on Apps in the Dock. This is the feature that has replaced the old LaunchPad, and it is better, even if fans of the old way won’t agree.

macOS Tahoe review: Live Activities

Apple brought iPhone-style Live Activities to the Mac with macOS Tahoe, and I know that’s true, I have seen it in action. But only in testing.

Perhaps it’s because I haven’t had to track flights. Or that I’ll never follow any sports scores.

Or maybe that while it does show when a takeaway curry is about to be delivered, I’m no longer at my Mac when I order in dinner.

I think Live Activities is superb on the iPhone, and especially now that Apple Watch workouts appear there too. Plus when I’ve been waiting at an airport, it has been Live Activities that told me my flight was cancelled before the departure boards did.

Yet on the Mac, I know Live Activities appear in the menu bar, I’ve just never seen them in real-life use. But yet again, that’s me and my use cases, it can’t be any criticism of how Apple has done it.

macOS Tahoe review: it sounds disappointing

Despite saying that I’m not criticizing Live Activities, and despite noting that my Phone app problems could just be mine, I do still sound negative about macOS Tahoe. And that’s also despite saying I’m not against Liquid Glass.

The thing is, I moved to macOS Tahoe on my Mac Studio in order write about it during the beta process. I did not move my MacBook Pro over to it until weeks after the final release.

Launchpad is gone, but its replacement is better.

Which means I was forever going back and forth between macOS Tahoe and macOS Sequoia. And I preferred Tahoe.

I preferred it so much that I just had to go check that the previous version was called macOS Sequoia. It seems a long time ago, and it seems like your Mac isn’t right when you’re using it.

But then that definitely is what happens with every new release of macOS. Within a short while, the new edition no longer seems like a new toy, it feels as if this is how the Mac should always have been.

macOS Tahoe review – Pros

• Liquid Glass does freshen up the Mac
• Clipboard History is a boon, although limited
• Apple Intelligence boosts Shortcuts
• Live Activities are useful in the menubar

macOS Tahoe review – Cons

• Phone app feels abandoned: takes obscure fiddling to make it work at all
• Tab Groups Shortcut action still doesn’t work
• FireWire is gone, but that’s only applicable to a few
• Rival Clipboard History apps are all significantly better

macOS Tahoe rating – 3.5 out of 5

Pet projects can be terrific, especially when they come from a legendary musician finally making the album he always had in his head. In the liner notes to Peregrine, drummer Peter Erskine puts it plainly: “This is the album I always wanted to make.”

He is joined by pianist Alan Pasqua, whose résumé includes the New Tony Williams Lifetime, Bob Dylan, and Santana, and bassist Scott Colley, who has worked with Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, and Joshua Redman. Together offering a combination of heartfelt originals and choice covers, the group delivers a lush, beautifully recorded analog jazz experience.

Peregrine embraces post-bop to pop sensibilities in a jazz mode, opening with Pasqua’s soulful “Gumbo Time.” They then dive into Keith Jarrett’s title track from his 1978 Impulse Records LP “Bop Be” (the first Jarrett album I ever bought, by the way!). The group transforms some classic pop into compelling jazz voyages in a totally refreshing manner such as on Jimmy Webb’s iconic “Wichita Lineman.” Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” features fine guest vocals by Kate Lamont and additional saxophone and percussion from Bob Shepherd and Brian Kilgore.

Peregrine significantly also pays homage to the recently departed Brian Wilson, covering his gorgeous, iconic composition “God Only Knows.” This performance is particularly special to me not only as a fan of Wilson’s music but because just last year I was utterly blown away by The Julian Shore Trio’s take on another Pet Sounds-era Wilson composition, “Don’t Talk” (found on their brilliant LP Sub Rosa, which I reviewed in case you missed it).

Seriously, between these two tremendously beautiful tracks, I can easily envision a super compelling, poignant jazz tribute album to Brian Wilson being assembled. (Just sayin’ to all you music-industry powers-that-be out there reading this!). 

Perhaps my favorite tune on Peregrine, however, closes the album: a haunting hushed meditation by Erskine called “On The Lake” which beautifully captures the essence of stillness through music. A remarkably understated and beautiful performance, this is very much one of those tracks where less is clearly more.

Produced at Reelsounds Studio in Illinois, album liner notes reveal that the album is likely an all-analog recording, and pretty much captured in first takes. The recording has that kind of energy to it. Accordingly, the vinyl pressing delivers a very warm, rich and welcoming portrait of the band in the studio. 

This music feels fluid, with particularly rich natural presence and decay on Erskine’s sensitive drum and cymbal work — listen for those crips rides and wave-like splashes on “Bop Be”! — and Pasqua’s piano (check out those long held single notes on “Wichita Lineman”). Even though Mr. Erskine is the most well-known member of the group playing arguably the (potentially) loudest instrument, unlike many vintage jazz albums led by drummers (ie. Krupa, Blakey, Jones, etc), Peregrine presents the music as very much a balanced group sound. 

Mastered by Jeff Powell at Takeout vinyl in Memphis, Peregrine is pressed on dark, quiet, perfectly well centered standard weight black vinyl, so the music appears transparently, and naturally out of your speakers. Peregrine is the work of serious music professionals creating music from the heart. Well worth your attention.

An independent release from Hard Wag Records, you can get Peregrine online at Amazon for $27.99.

Mark Smotroff is a deep music enthusiast / collector who has also worked in entertainment oriented marketing communications for decades supporting the likes of DTS, Sega and many others. He reviews vinyl for Analog Planet and has written for Audiophile Review, Sound+Vision, Mix, EQ, etc.  You can learn more about him at LinkedIn.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Oof, the purple category in today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a real challenge. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Barn is another one.

Green group hint: Workers’ rights.

Blue group hint: Items for very specific events.

Purple group hint: Take a word, add a letter.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Farm fixtures.

Green group: Labor protest actions.

Blue group: Objects used in ritual performances.

Purple group: Possessive adjectives plus a letter.

Read more: The One Wordle Hack That Can Save Your Winning Streak

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is farm fixtures. The four answers are coop, pen, shed and stable.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is labor protest actions. The four answers are march, picket, rally and strike.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is objects used in ritual performances. The four answers are drum, mask, rattle and staff.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is possessive adjectives plus a letter. The four answers are herb (her), hiss (his), itsy (it) and Mya (my).

The union representing staff at Apple Towson Town Center has announced a public rally for May 27, 2026, protesting against Apple’s treatment of its workers.

Apple Towson is not the only store that Apple has decided to close, but it is the only unionized one. It was the first Apple Store to unionize, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Union claims that its members are being discriminated against because of this.

Known as the Machinists’ Union for short, it has now announced a public protest.

“[Elected] officials, “labor allies, and community leaders will hold a #DoRightApple public solidarity rally on Wednesday, May 27,” says the union, “to demand accountability from Apple and support for the nearly 90 IAM Local 4538 members facing job loss.”

Apple has said that it is closing this store, and two others in June 2026, because of changes in the shopping malls where they are based.

“Following the departure of several retailers and declining conditions at Trumbull Mall, the Shops at North County, and Towson Town Center,” said Apple when the closures were announced, “we’ve made the difficult decision to close our stores at these locations.”

Local council members have objected to Apple’s decision to close the store. But the Machinists’ Union is calling out Apple over how it is treating its members differently from staff in the non-unionized stores.

Specifically, Apple has said that staff from those stores can continue in their jobs at other Apple Store locations. For the Towson store, it says those staff are “eligible to apply for open roles at Apple in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement.”

That agreement is the one established between Apple and the union. However, the Machinists’ Union claims that there is no clause in it which would prohibit Apple from relocating its staff.

The Machinists’ Union has previously filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge against Apple with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB has previously been successful in accusing Apple of illegal union-busting activities.

This public protest rally on May 27 will start at 11 a.m. Eastern at Patriot Plaza, 400 E. Washington Ave., Towson, Md., just over half a mile away from the store. It will be streamed live on the Machinists’ Union’s Facebook page.

The $20B search engine preference deal with Apple was “fair and square,” Google insists in its antitrust appeal against the Department of Justice.

In August 2024, a court ruled that Google was a monopolist in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet. One that involved an investigation into Google’s $20 billion deal with Apple to make Google the preferred search engine of Safari.

On May 22, Google filed its appeal against federal rulings that it held illegal monopolies in search and advertising.

The filing posted by Reuters covers many areas, including that Judge Amit Mehta made legal errors in his 2024 ruling. Google doesn’t believe that it had illegally blocked competitors with its search deal, but really, it’s because Apple chose it.

In the filing, Google claims that, whether the court believes Google has monopoly power or not, it “did nothing” to harm competition. Google didn’t block rivals to make their own offers, and it didn’t block Apple from choosing a better one either.

There is no evidence that Google’s customers would have chosen a rival, even if those agreements didn’t exist, it continues.

It even pointed to Apple’s conclusion that the Microsoft rival Bing was “inferior” and “horrible at monetizing advertising,”

“Google just prevailed in the marketplace fair and square,” it declares.

Apple could’ve promoted other engines, the filing explains, and that Safari also does list alternative options within its settings. Ultimately, Google says that the court interpreted there to be “exclusivity” when really it was for “sound business reasons” on Apple’s part.

Aiming for a reversal

While Google has managed to escape major injury from the lawsuit, it still has some duties to take care of.

The later ruling was in September 2025, when it was decided that Google didn’t have to sell off Android or Chrome. It was also permitted to continue its $20 billion search deal with Apple.

However, it was decided that Google had to share search data with its competitors.

The appeal is an attempt to go back on this and other remedies that Google was ordered to carry out. Reversing the ruling wouldn’t affect things like the Apple search deal, but it would stop the data-sharing requirement entirely.

A section of the appeal discusses how this applies to rival companies that, to Google, shouldn’t be classed as such. Specifically, companies that deal strictly with AI.

To Google, it has to share data with firms like OpenAI, which is behind ChatGPT, which doesn’t offer its own general search engine. They provide answers that reference what would normally be search results.

Google argues that it is wrong to be forced to supply data to OpenAI as a rival. Generative AI products didn’t really exist in a substantial way at the time, so the court couldn’t incorporate ChatGPT and others as rivals when considering its ruling.

AI companies are already massively succeeding, without any need to “free-ride on Google’s success,” it proposes. As such, Google believes that the data-sharing remedies shouldn’t apply to AI companies that don’t offer a general search engine.

At the time of publication, the court has not responded nor scheduled any further courtroom activity. Based on typical scheduling patterns, the case could continue in late 2026, or even in 2027.