The Weather Station The window on the left of the desk opens now. Behind it are twenty-four posters about the weather and the climate, on seven shelves — clouds and fronts and the water cycle, why the equator is hot and mountains are cold, how a thunderstorm builds and how far away it is. Five questions at the end of every shelf and twenty over the lot, every one of them off a poster. And a search box at the top: type a kind of cloud, an instrument, a country, or a whole question like "how far away is lightning", and the posters that answer it come up, each showing the line that does. Read the name on the trophy The engraving on the desk trophy was six points tall on a phone, which is to say unreadable. Tap it and it opens at about five times the size, with the name drawn in properly. The freehand board tidied up A country that has clicked home stays put, so pinching to zoom no longer drags its neighbour out of place. Anything still adrift keeps its colour while everything settled turns to pale land — so at the end of a round the one country still out of position is the only coloured shape on the board. And the button at the top now says whether you have finished, and which country is furthest from home if you have not.

Build a continent from nothing A new way to play Build the World, on the toggle at the top. There is no continent drawn underneath and no outlines to aim at — one country is already in the right place and the rest of the mainland is yours to fit around it. Africa builds out from South Africa, Europe from Italy and Sweden, Asia from India, South America from Brazil. Drop a country close to one already down and it clicks flush against it. The number at the top is how far out the whole board is on average, and it falls as you tidy. Each continent saves itself as you go, so you can leave Africa half built and come back to it. Maps behind every country Open a country in Explore the Map and there is a new card under its facts: its reference maps. Terrain and Provinces for all 232 countries, and Roads for the 105 that have one — 569 sheets in all. Tap one to open it full screen and pinch in as far as it will go. The map on your wall Country borders are now drawn over the projected map, so the countries stand out from across the room. And a country you tap comes off the wall: it lifts as a piece of the map, with its own shadow left behind on the page, rather than only lighting up where it sits. The iPad turns Every screen works sideways on an iPad now. The iPhone stays upright, which is the shape the app was drawn for.

Slide the Flag A sliding block puzzle has joined Paint the Flag. A flag is cut into six pieces or twelve, one piece is taken away, and the rest are shuffled. Tap a piece next to the hole to slide it across — or tap one further along the same row and the whole run comes with it. You are told the country and not shown the flag. There is a Show flag button for when you are stuck, and finishing without pressing it says so. All 116 flags are in, each rated by how many of its pieces you can actually tell apart. Tap a country on the wall The map you project onto a wall or a table is no longer just a picture. Tap a country and its outline lights up where it sits, with a card beside it carrying the flag, the name, the capital, the population and the region. Tap the sea and it says so. The projected map also holds still now. It used to drift as you walked around it; it is pinned to the room instead, and it settles onto the wall before it locks.

Fixes a problem in Where's Wolly where the card at the bottom of the screen could cover the southern edge of the map, with no way to drag it into view.

Build the World now has the whole planet in one puzzle — all 198 countries and territories — and it saves itself as you go, so you can stop and come back to it. Two new levels on that board:
• Impossible — no name, no flag, just a shape. Place it, then name it out of five.
• Impossibler — the same, but first guess how many people live there, then pick its flag out of five. ("Impossibler" isn't a word. I know. It felt right.) Also new: Jumbled letters, a second way to play the spelling rounds — the answer's own letters, one word to a line, each shuffled. BRAISE for Serbia. A running total of how far off you've been, and a bubble on every drop. A Find button that brings the piece you're holding back to the middle of the screen. And the population counter under the desk quietly keeps itself current. Fixed: the grab area around a piece no longer swallows the map when you're zoomed in, and the world map under the puzzle draws again.

Map Minded now runs on iPad and iPhone with iOS 17, so older iPads can join in. Nothing else has changed.

Map Minded now plays on iPhone. Not a cut-down version — the whole game. The desk, the map, the flags and every puzzle have been laid out again for a phone held upright, and nothing has been left out. NEW Trivia — six games behind the TRIVIA sign above the desk. More or Less and Bigger or Smaller pit two countries against each other, Population Guesser wants a number, Who Are My Neighbours and Border Patrol are about who touches whom, and Country Dominoes asks you to chain bordering countries for as long as you can. Watch out for Portugal — it has only one way out. Build the USA — all fifty states as jigsaw pieces. Project the Map — point your iPad or iPhone at a wall or a table and the world map is pinned there, about a metre and a half across, to walk around. Find a Place — a search box in Explore the Map. Every country and every capital, and it copes with what you actually type: USA, Holland, Burma, and a fair bit of misspelling. Spell the Capital — the letter ring, now for capital cities as well as countries. Four more Head Scratchers — All Fifty States, Longest Name, One Vowel, and Not That One: eleven countries whose capital is not the city you first think of. What Counts as a Country? — an honest explanation of where the app draws the line, and where it is arguable. BETTER Your score pops up off the pin the moment you drop it, green through to red. The last ten seconds of a timed round grow, redden and beep, and the clock has moved off the question card so there is more map to play on. Twice-the-size flags in the quick quizzes. Norway redrawn, and stars on flags you can finally fill with one tap. Drop the Flag tidied up throughout. FIXED Rounds that no longer repeat themselves, guesses that take the short way across the Pacific instead of the long way round the world, and Head Scratchers answers judged when you move on rather than only on Return. Buy it once. No subscription, no adverts, no account.