CLOUD SAVE Your careers are now copied to iCloud Drive while you play. On a new phone, or after a reinstall, open Hardwood GM and your careers are waiting in the Front Office under Cloud save, ready to restore. Nothing is ever replaced without asking: an older copy never overwrites a newer one, the career you are replacing is kept as a safety copy first, and a career leaves iCloud only when you tap delete and confirm. It is on by default and you can turn it off. A CLEARER SHOP The Shop is sorted into what changes how a career plays and what is only a look or a thank-you. The Complete GM Bundle sits at the top, now with every unlock added later, and every item says in one plain line what it does. SUPPORTERS AND THE HALL Three ways to back a small game and wear it: Supporter, Patron and Legend. A ring and badge on your profile and shared cards, a plaque in the Hall of Supporters, the whole Style Pack and a title line for Patron, and a gold look, a retired-jersey banner and your name in the credits for Legend. A look and a thank-you only. Nothing here changes a rating or a result. MORE TO UNLOCK Records Book, the Style Pack (six accent colors, four court floors, four crest shapes) and Expansion Draft join the Shop.

PLAYOFF PRESS CONFERENCES Win a series, lose one, or win it all, and the media wants a word. What you say moves the locker room and the fans, just like in the regular season. THE STRETCH RUN The owner now writes when you clinch or when you are out. Clinch early and you choose: rest the starters to keep them healthy, or chase the seed. NEW: RETRO ERAS Start a career in one of four classic league styles: the Low Post Years, the Run and Gun Years, the Midrange Kingdom or the Hand Check Wars. Every club plays the same era, so nobody gets an edge. Try one free for a career. NEW: SITUATIONS VOL. 4 Seven more ways to start a career: two stars who will not speak, a playoff run that was a fluke, a sellout streak, a meddling new owner, a rematch with the club that swept you, a star who did not report, and an owner who only cares about the Cup. Try one free for a career. NEW: FOUNDER'S EDITION Everything in the Complete GM Bundle plus a gold Founder look for your profile, share cards and screens. Cosmetic only. It is the way to support the game if you want to. MORE TO READ Press questions, player replies, owner notes, desk mail and league news all have many more ways to say things, and the eras come in a different order each career. BETTER SHOP The Complete GM Bundle now includes both new unlocks. The Shop retries if the store is slow to answer, and a failed restore now tells you so.

TRY IT FREE Every locked situation and every Challenge Rule on the New Career screen now has "Try it free for one career", once for each unlock, so you can play what you are thinking of buying before you buy it. SITUATIONS VOL. 3 Six more ways to start a career: a superteam with three stars and no bench, one more run with the oldest core in the league, somebody else's lottery pick in your pocket, your star out until March, one year to save your job, and a GM nobody in the league has heard of. CHALLENGE RULES Play a career the hard way. Six rules, each with its own trophy: Homegrown (no outside free agents), Loyalist (no trades), Under the Line (never over the tax), Iron Man (no rewinds), Keep the Picks (never trade a first-round pick) and Spread the Money (no contract over a quarter of the cap). One more trophy for a title with the first four all on. Pick them when you start a new career. MORE IN THE UNLOCKS YOU OWN Create-A-Player adds two backgrounds, The Overseas Pro and The Walk-On. League Architect adds 12 ready-made color schemes and a one-tap swap. A League Architect move now changes only the look: the market size and the fans stay as they were. TOKEN VAULT AND A BIGGER BUNDLE A 150-token pack at the best rate in the store. The Complete GM Bundle now includes both new unlocks, and every one added later. A NEW SHOP TAB Everything you can get in one place: every unlock, the bundle, token packs, free tokens from ads and Restore Purchases. It sits on the tab bar on every screen, next to the token counter in the offseason, and in the Front Office. SIM TO THE DEADLINE A new Sim to… button on the Office screen jumps to trade deadline day, with trades still open, or to the end of the regular season. It stops early if a player holds out or a rival puts an offer sheet on one of yours, and one rewind undoes the whole jump. SIGN-AND-TRADE Your free agent is leaving? Sign him and trade him. If a club wants him but has no cap room, he can sign with you on his asking terms and go straight there, and you get players or picks back instead of nothing. Open one of your own free agents in free agency and tap Find a sign-and-trade. THE SUPERMAX Keep the star you built around. A player your club drafted or has had for four seasons, seven years into his career and honored in the last two (MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, All-League), can be paid up to 15% more than the league max by you, and by nobody else. The AI clubs use it for their own stars too. YOUR TOKENS ARE SAFER Tokens you bought, and the unlocks you own, now keep a second copy on your phone, so a phone that runs low on space can no longer empty your balance. And if the game is closed in the middle of buying a token pack, the tokens are added the next time you open it. FIXES Box scores read like the modern game: about 37 three-point attempts a game and a league field goal percentage near 47%, up from 26 and down from 48. Nothing about who wins changed. The offseason development report shows which players had a summer focus. Restore Purchases on the League Architect and Create-A-Player screens now tells you when there is nothing to restore for that unlock, instead of closing with nothing changed. Free agency shows a club over the cap as "Over cap $22.6M" rather than "$-22.6M". Clubs read the American way throughout: "Boston has made a change," not "Boston have." A simulated season runs noticeably faster. Buying the bundle from the season review unlocks it right away, and says so if the purchase fails. If a token pack purchase lost its connection after you were charged, buying again no longer loses the first pack. Offers for unlocks say more clearly what is included, and the first-season offer shows only once. Draft bios no longer print a double period. The playoff button no longer reads "Sim the The Finals".

DESIGN A PROSPECT Create-A-Player, a new unlock: pick a position, an archetype, a background and a name, and the game rolls him into this year's draft class. He rolls the way every other prospect does, he is fogged and scouted like the rest of the board, and he still has to be drafted, by you or by one of the other thirty clubs. Once a season. Included in the Complete GM Bundle. SHARE THE BIG MOMENTS Win the title, finish a season you are proud of, make the trade everybody argued about, take an award or unlock a trophy, and tap Share. The game draws a card with your club's crest and colors, sized for a phone feed, and opens the share sheet with the picture attached. The buttons are on the yearbook, on the trophies you just unlocked, in the trophy case, and right after a trade. A RATING, IF YOU WANT TO After your club wins its first playoff series, the game asks once, through Apple's own prompt, whether you would like to rate Hardwood GM. Nothing is given for a rating and you can dismiss it. There is also a Rate Hardwood GM row in the Front Office handbook if you would rather do it yourself. BACK UP YOUR CAREER A career is now a file you can keep. On the launch screen, tap the share icon next to a career to save it to Files, iCloud Drive or anywhere else, and Restore a career from a backup puts it back on this phone or a new one. No account needed. SIX NEW SITUATIONS Situations Vol. 2, a new start pack: Hired at the deadline (you get the desk in late January, ten days out, with the season half over), The expansion franchise (a roster built from what nobody protected), The kid (a nineteen-year-old with a generational ceiling and not much else). Two clocks (old stars, a young core, one season to serve both), Hometown hero (your best player is out of contract in June) and A skeleton staff (every coach walked out with the last GM). Included in the Complete GM Bundle. A FAIRER LEAGUE The MVP now comes from a winning club. Dead money counts against the cap in trades and against the tax, as it does in the real league. A promise made at a signing is judged on the minutes he actually played, so keeping your word is never marked as breaking it, and a starting job promised on paper is never kept on paper alone. MORE TO READ New lines for the season opener, the season wrap, the champions, the preseason, the awards, retirements and Summer League, so a long career repeats itself less.

A NEW LOOK The title screen, the trade phones, the draft, the postseason, the Hall of Fame and the owner's office now have their own scene. A title run gets the confetti. THE OWNER SPEAKS UP Your owner now writes three times a season (the first month, the halfway mark and the stretch run), in his own temperament and from your real record. A week before the trade deadline the front office sends a report on where you stand and who is about to walk. TRADE TALK THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GM Rival GMs answer in their own words, with dozens of different replies picked from the deal in front of them. When a deal is close, they name what would actually close it. Talk topics with your players read differently from one visit to the next. DRAFT NIGHT Scouting reports have more voice and stay on a rookie's card after the draft. Your own pick gets a call: steal, reach or right on the board. A HARDER LEAGUE Free agents and extensions now want close to their asking price, so a winning club can no longer sign a star for the minimum. Owners judge a truly bad record: tanking a season is not free anymore, though a patient owner gives a rebuild two years. A player you just traded for cannot be flipped for two months. Unsigned free agents age once a year instead of twice, a drafted prospect is no longer cut to make room for a worse veteran, and a no-trade promise now pays off when you keep it. FASTER REWARDS "Watch an ad to Rewind" (or +3 Action Points, or a scouting report) does it in one tap. The Starter Pack lasts a real week. Unlocks Apple has not priced yet no longer show a button that cannot work. The bundle badge shows a percentage, so it is true in every currency. SMALLER THINGS A new app icon. Sim 1 week stops when a holdout or an offer sheet lands. Action Points show FULL when the daily refill would be wasted.

A CREST FOR EVERY CLUB All 32 franchises now have their own crest, drawn to the nickname and shown wherever a club appears: standings, trades, awards, the draft board and the yearbook. It takes on your club's colors, including a League Architect recolor. FEWER HOLDOUTS A player you have not talked to no longer sits out just because a trade request went unanswered. A content player keeps playing, an unhappy star still walks out, and a holdout that ends starts a fresh clock. Passive GMs see about one holdout every two or three seasons instead of one a season. A FAIRER TOKEN STORE Token Boost is now $4.99, and the Complete GM Bundle saves more against buying the three apart. Unlocks appear in the store only once they can actually be bought. The free daily token can no longer be collected twice by rewinding, and a Token Boost bought mid-season now sticks through a rewind. The ad reward screen shows exactly what an ad paid. MORE TO READ About a hundred new lines of news, press questions, coach and owner conversations and season recaps. Awards night now makes the news, playoff and play-in results read correctly, and a veteran's farewell is a real send-off. FIXES Restore Purchases only unlocks what you own. Broken and voided promises show correctly on the Promises page. A promise to a player who retired no longer costs you trust. Rewind is hidden in free agency, where it would undo the draft, and it now says what it will undo. Traded or waived players no longer carry a holdout to their new club. The replay button reads properly after a Finals loss.

THE STORE GOES WHERE YOU GO Rewind and the token store now work from the playoffs, the summer, the draft and free agency, not just the front office. Lose a series and you can replay that round on the spot. A rewind now genuinely replays the games differently, instead of handing back the exact result you were trying to undo. NEW: A BUNDLE AND A STARTER OFFER The Complete GM Bundle gives you Token Boost, the Front Office Pass and League Architect together, for less than buying the three apart. New GMs also get a one-time Starter Pack in their first week: thirty tokens for the price of twelve. MORE TO TALK ABOUT New press questions about a holdout, a play-in race, an All-Star snub and a recent trade. Dialogue options roughly doubled, with replies shaped by a player's personality. More news variety across trades, injuries, the locker room and the playoffs. RATINGS AND VALUE League ratings settle where they are meant to instead of drifting high. Trade value now accounts for how close a player is to his prime, not just his overall. Generated veterans age the way real players do, instead of playing like rookies at forty. Re-signing a coach charges the fee it always should have. FIXES Two dozen smaller fixes: offer sheets, owner patience, promises kept or broken, the play-in read correctly against the real playoffs, staff renewals, the Cup bracket, awards and trophies, and old saves loading cleanly.

OTHER CLUBS WANT YOU Do the job well for a couple of seasons and a better club may call at the end of the year. Take the job, or stay where you are and your owner will notice. Turned them down and changed your mind? You can call them back before the summer starts. TOKENS YOU BUY STAY YOURS Tokens you buy now carry over to every career, including a new one, and stay if you delete a save. Free tokens still belong to the career that earned them. FIXES Other clubs can no longer sign players onto your roster from the G-League. Trade requests made late in a season no longer stall for months. The staff hiring list no longer changes every time you open it, assistant GMs now improve at their job, and the last two picks of the first round get rookie contracts. Several smaller issues with the G-League, staff and older saves are fixed.

NEW SCENARIO: NOTHING TO SPEND A good roster sitting in a building nobody has paid for in years. Worn-out facilities, almost nothing in the budget, and an owner who expects you to earn the money to fix it. Included with the Front Office Pass. NEW GAME PLAN: SWITCH EVERYTHING Go small and switch every screen. It rewards perimeter defenders, shooters and athletes, gives up some rebounding, and is the first system built for a Stretch Four. Some head coaches now come in running it as their own. MORE TO SAY IN THE LOCKER ROOM Every kind of player complaint has twice as many ways to open, trade requests most of all, and more players will tell you when a system does not suit them. FAIRER MONEY RULES Free agency now follows the same cap rules the rest of the league plays by: above the apron you are limited to minimum deals, dead money counts against your cap room, and you can use Bird rights to keep your own free agents. Buyouts now show and charge the right amount, and always cost less than a waive. Two-way deals are for players on contracts near the minimum. FIXES The launch screen can no longer get stuck. If a screen fails to draw, you can now clear just that save and start over. Several rare issues with loading older saves, trades and the player card are fixed.

A SCOUTING TRIP FOR SUMMER LEAGUE Summer League has always quietly shaped a prospect's development for next season behind the scenes. Now you can see it: spend a token to reveal exactly how one Summer League standout's play is shaping his own development, the same way Deep Scout already reveals a draft prospect. FIXES Rewarded ads now have a sensible ceiling instead of none at all.

THE LEAGUE GROWS TO 32 The Seattle Current and the Pittsburgh Steelheads join, and the map is redrawn around them: eight divisions of four clubs instead of six of five. The in-season Cup now runs eight groups of four, one round robin each, and the eight group winners go through on their own merit, so the old runner-up wildcard is gone. The 82 games are redealt too: twelve inside your division, thirty-eight against the rest of your conference, thirty-two across it. Your existing career picks up both clubs by itself the next time you open it, rosters, staff and draft picks included. WHEN A STAR ASKS OUT, IT IS NOW A STORY Until now every unhappy player asked for a trade the same way, whether he was a fringe rotation guy or your best player, and the news said it in the same single line for both. A franchise player, meaning the best man on your roster at 82 overall or better, now gets a saga instead. It starts quiet, the way it always did. Leave it ten days unresolved and he goes public, and from that moment he shows up on his own club's trade block whether the front office calls him untouchable or not, because pretending otherwise would be a lie the block was telling you. The story keeps landing every couple of weeks while it stays unresolved, and rival GMs read the room: the longer he twists in public, the worse the return you can get for him. It runs at all 32 clubs, not just yours, so a star can come loose somewhere else and you can be the one waiting. NEW: THE LEAGUE ARCHITECT PACK A one-time $3.99 purchase, yours permanently. Set the colors of any club in the league, and relocate any club to a new city at any time, both from the Front Office, under Names. It is a set of tools, not an edge. Colors are read nowhere that a rating, a contract or a record is decided, and a relocation gives the same fan interest bump it always gave, whoever moves. The free relocation option for a struggling club stays exactly where it was, untouched. FIXES Fixed a bug that could hand a newly generated player the same identity as someone already in your league. It happened after loading a save, so the first new faces of the year, a draft class, a free agent filler, a G League call-up, could quietly inherit another man's stats and contract. On a cold launch of a mature save this was reliable rather than rare, and it is now closed off at the single point every load passes through.

A maintenance release, and all of it is about your saves. SAVING IS FASTER Every time the game saved, it used to spend a moment packing your career into a more compact format first. On a long career that showed up as a small stutter after almost every action. It turned out the packing was never saving enough space to be worth the wait, so it is gone, and saving is now several times faster. SAVES ARE STURDIER On your phone, each career now lives in a file of its own rather than in the app's settings store, which is meant for small values and was never a good home for a save that grows to a couple of megabytes. Every save is written out in full before it replaces the last one, and the previous save is kept as a backup. If the app is closed at exactly the wrong moment, you pick up from your last good save instead of losing the career. Your existing careers carry over on their own the first time you open this version. Nothing to do.

The biggest update since launch. A career that survives being fired, a league that changes shape over decades, and a lot more to read. YOUR CAREER, NOT YOUR SAVE FILE Get fired and the phone rings. Other clubs make offers, each with its own situation and its own kind of owner, and your record follows you. You have a contract of your own now, and a reputation that is yours rather than any one owner's opinion of you. A LEAGUE THAT MOVES The cap grows every few seasons and the way the game is played drifts with it. Clubs stuck in small markets with empty buildings relocate. Your division neighbors are permanent rivals, and so is anyone who knocks you out of the playoffs. Four preseason games to try an idea before it gets expensive. A play-in for the last two seeds in each conference. THE ROOM Chemistry is a real number now, built from how long the group has been together, whether the personalities fit, and whether too many of them need the ball. Every player has an agent with a style: one wants a number on the table early, one keeps everything private, one puts a grievance in the paper before he puts it to you. A trade demand can now be answered rather than only endured. THE NUMBERS True shooting, effective field goal, usage, player rating and efficiency on every card and as league leaderboards. Live MVP, Defensive Player and Rookie of the Year ladders from fifteen games into the season. Career leaders, franchise greats, the single-game record book and a ranked argument about the best career the league has seen. Any two of your players side by side, line for line. THINGS TO READ Every season ends with a yearbook. Close games get their last two minutes written out. The news feed has nearly twice the variety it had, and the handbook now explains every system in the game rather than the ones that existed at launch. TWO NEW WAYS TO START Fantasy draft the whole league before your first game and pick a roster out of the pot yourself, contracts and all. Or take the worst roster in the league, with the picks that were supposed to fix it already traded away. FIFTY TROPHIES Up from twenty-one, kept outside the save so they survive the career that earned them. Unusual ways to win rather than milestones. FIXES Box score columns now add up to the points beside them. A player can no longer score in zero minutes. A star surrounded by nobody takes a bigger share of the offense and converts it worse, rather than scoring without limit. Elite centers exist. Draft classes no longer inflate the league year after year. Save files are smaller.

Set the rotation yourself. Team > Rotation gives every player a number of minutes instead of a role, starting from the coach's own rotation so you are editing rather than beginning from nothing. Only the players you name take the floor, and anyone past about 36 minutes tires and plays worse. Rename the league. Front Office > Names changes any club's city and nickname, and a player can be renamed from his own card. Everything updates at once, from the standings to the record book, and it belongs to your career alone. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is shared. The rest of the league is playing now. Rival players get unhappy and ask to be traded, clubs list the players they would rather move on, and a listed player costs less than one who is not for sale. A coach is judged on more than the season he is standing in, and most business happens in the two weeks before the deadline. Rival clubs spend money now too, on their coaching staff and their buildings, which they never did before. The front office is no longer a lever only you were pulling. Fixes: token refunds and tutorial rewards no longer clip a large balance, and a headline that could repeat every night is gone.

Three careers, three save slots. Start a second job without losing the first. More to look at: a full schedule with results, team stats (points for and against, net rating, home and road records), a Franchise page with your banners and retired numbers, and a season-by-season stat table on every player card. All-Star Saturday: the Three-Point Contest and the Dunk Contest, drawn from the best shooters and athletes in the league. Player of the Week honors every seven days. More league records, and team records for the biggest win, the longest streak and the most points in a game. Player of the game on every box score, with a one-tap rewind after a loss. The last result stays on your desk. News is dated. Players now wear their team's colors and numbers, and their faces show how the season is going. Tokens: the first ad you watch each day pays two. Two new ways to spend them, a scouting trip and lunch with the owner, plus a new 30-token pack between the small and large ones. Fixes: token refunds and tutorial rewards no longer clip a large balance, one fewer repeated headline, and the Office header fits on small screens. There is a new app icon too.