News

One of the great things about patent lawsuits is that companies like Apple unleash photos of prototype devices that have never seen the light of day. The Verge has uncovered a great collection of iPhone designs that have never been seen outside of Apple's walls.

The designs range from an octagonal shaped iPhone with a silver bezel to a slim, tall profile device known as the n90. If this number rings a bell, it might be because early rumors of the iPhone 4 leaked this model number. The n90 pictured is quite different from the iPhone 4 that made it into production.

The $0.99 Tower Defense game Goal Defense is available for free for a limited time in celebration of the upcoming Olympic Games in London. Goal Defense is a simple hex-based Tower Defense game for the iPhone and iPad. It features 40 challenging levels, fun animations and plenty of upgrades and bonuses.

In Goal Defense you must train a team of random athletes to defend the Golden Bowl trophy from waves of muscle-bound jocks. The game follows most of the basic Tower Defense staples, but its fun cartoonish play separates it from other boring TD rehashes. The game is simple to play, just drag your players onto the field to stop the oncoming waves of enimies from getting to the trophy. You can upgrade and sell your players by tapping them, and use click and drag bonus weapons to save your butt when a jock slips by your defense. The controls may be simple, but the game does get increasingly difficult and trickier as you advance. For example, on level six small vans begin dropping off players closer to the target making it more difficult to build a solid defense.

Google has been adding some interesting new mobile features today. First there was the Google Earth 3D update, and now 9to5Mac has discovered a new handwriting feature for Google Search. The handwriting recognition option allows you use your finger to write what you're searching for. This eliminates fat finger typos when using the iPhone's smaller screen.

To activate the new feature go to google.com/preferences on your iPhone or iPad, and enable the "Handwrite" feature. Then tap the ‘g’ icon while on google.com to start writing. The feature will automatically convert your handwriting into text inside of the search box.

Apple plans to replace Google Maps with its own 3D mapping software when it releases iOS 6 this fall, but Google has beaten them to the punch by adding a new 3D view to its Google Earth app.

Verison 7.0 of Google Earth features 3D imagery for 14 regions including: Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, Geneva and Rome. Google plans to add additional 3D cities to the iOS and Android platforms in the coming weeks. Version 7.0 also allows you to explore various locations, historic landmarks and natural wonders with its new "Tour Guide" feature. The new 3D view is available for the iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and new iPad. You can download the app for free from the Apple App Store.

SearchEnable is a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to add alternative search engines to Safari. The tweak adds Ask, Baidu, blekko, Sogu, Volunia, Yandex, Evi and WolframAplha to the Safari search engine options listed under Settings. SearchEnable basically gives you a few more international choices besides the popular U.S. options (Google, Yahoo and Bing) already included on your phone. Make sure you have the Safari app enabled under SBSettings or the Safari setting panel will not be available.