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

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle could be tough. If you watch a lot of Game of Thrones-type shows, or play D&D, the answers might come easily for you. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Survival mode

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Needed skills.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• GIFT, LIFT, LITE, LITER, LIFTER, MITE, MITER, RIDE, RIDES, SIDE, SIDES

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• ARMOR, AGILITY, MIMICRY, CAMOUFLAGE, DISTRACTION

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is DEFENSES. To find it, start with the D that’s the farthest left letter on the top row, and wind down.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.

#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT. 

#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Last year, a Reddit thread emerged suggesting that the iPhone 17 Pro’s vibrant cosmic orange color could somehow turn bright pink and it turns out it’s absolutely true. In a previous version of this article I tested the Redditor’s claims by attacking my phone with various chemicals and at the time I didn’t notice much difference, but a couple of months on, things have changed. And when I put my phone against a fresh iPhone 17 Pro Max at MWC 2026, the difference was clear: mine was now bright pink. Here’s what happened and what you can do to protect yours. 

As PCMag’s Eric Zeman noted, discoloration can be caused by cleaning substances that affect a phone’s finish, with oxidation being to blame for the color shift from cosmic orange to hot pink. Sure, this might technically be a fault, but in all honesty I love pink phones (remember the pink Moto Razr V3?) and the idea of a hot pink iPhone 17 Pro filled me with joy. So I tested the theory with various cleaning fluids.

It’s important to note here that the iPhone 17 Pro I used was bought by CNET for the purposes of testing. Had I paid over $1,000 of my own money, I would never be so reckless in smearing it with chemicals that could potentially do it irreparable harm. And you shouldn’t either. If you need to clean your phone, do it safely. Disclaimer aside, let’s dive in.

The chemicals

I first bought two chemicals to test this out. Zeman explains that oxidation may have caused the color to change and that hydrogen peroxide could do this. I couldn’t find this over the counter in the UK at the time (but more on this later), so I instead bought an «oxy-active» stain remover spray that, among other things, contains «oxygen-based bleaching agents» which sounded ideal. Apple clearly states, «don’t use products containing bleach or hydrogen peroxide» on its support page — so, naturally, I bought some thick bleach too.

Oxy application

I started by spraying the oxy cleaner on a microfiber cloth until it was noticeably wet from the liquid. I then liberally applied it all over the rear of the iPhone. The Reddit user with the affected phone showed that it only affected the metal parts, not the glass back panel, so I made sure to focus my attention on the sides and camera bar. 

With the phone well and truly doused in chemicals that have no business being anywhere near a phone, I left it to sit and think about what it had done for 30 minutes — after which time I wiped it dry and took a close inspection. Disappointingly, my phone was still factory orange, rather than «what the hell have you done to your phone» pink. Time to move on.

Bleach blast

I opened the bleach and, trying hard not to think about my days as a middle-school cleaner, applied a liberal blob of the stuff to a cloth. Again I smeared it over the defenceless phone, concentrating again on the metal areas. I definitely should have worn protective gloves for all of this, so please make sure you take better care of yourself than I do if you do anything with bleach. 

Again, I gave it a 30-minute settling-in period before cleaning it off and inspecting the results. The phone remained as orange as ever, looking as box fresh as it was the day before when it was, indeed, box fresh. 

Hydrogen Peroxide FTW

While I couldn’t find hydrogen peroxide in shops in the UK, it was readily available on Amazon. I bought a bottle and, using a piece of kitchen towel, rubbed some liberally around the phone’s metal parts. I did this a few times, leaving it to air dry between applications. I was disappointed at first that I didn’t literally see the orange transform into hot pink, but over time I did notice that, in the right light, there was a more pinkish hue going on. 

But it felt subtle and in some lighting it just looked as orange as ever. But a few weeks later, during Mobile World Congress 2026, I compared the phone with Patrick Holland’s cosmic orange iPhone 17 Pro Max and that’s when the difference became wildly apparent. Mine wasn’t just a slight shift to pink, it looked like I’d bought a completely different color variant. All the metal surfaces looked vibrantly pink against the orange of Patrick’s model, with only the glass parts — and the non-metallic slits of the antennas — remaining orange.

Is the pink iPhone 17 real?

My first version of this article had to conclude that maybe that vibrant pink iPhone seen on Reddit wasn’t the real deal. Or that something had gone wrong within Apple’s manufacturing and that customer had simply bought a fault model. But finally seeing my chemically-treated phone against a fresh Cosmic Orange model really showed me what can happen to a phone if not looked after properly. 

So yes, it’s absolutely possible for an iPhone 17 Pro to turn from orange to pink. But the reality is that this isn’t going to be an issue for the vast majority of owners, and I don’t believe this can be considered any kind of fault on Apple’s side. Apple’s guidance is very clear that strong chemicals should not be used on its phones and frankly, I don’t think that’s even guidance that needs to be given. What I did — entirely on purpose — was to attack the phone with chemicals so potent that I couldn’t even buy them in shops. 

If you have an orange iPhone and want to keep it that way, my advice is simple: Don’t cover your phone in hydrogen peroxide. You’re welcome. Sure, I’m being flippant and it’s of course worth keeping in mind that hydrogen peroxide can be found in other products, including hair dyes, so it’s possible you may have some on your hands and then pick up your phone to answer a call without thinking. A case would certainly help protect your phone further. 

But otherwise I don’t think you need to worry about keeping your phone in its original orange state. Of course, if you simply want a pink iPhone 17 Pro then that’s another matter entirely, but my guidance remains that smearing your phone in dangerous chemicals is not sensible. It could do serious harm to you and your phone and you’re much better off just hoping that Apple launches a new pink iPhone Pro in September. And it might — it has just launched a pink iPhone 17E, after all.