The Bureau – XCOM Declassified arrives in the Mac App Store

Publisher 2K Games released XCOM: Enemy Unknown on the App Store back in June, following the Mac edition which went live earlier in the year. Basically an iOS port of the popular turn-based tactical role-playing strategy, XCOM: Enemy Unknown has since seen a few updates bringing a new multiplayer mode and other goodies. Meanwhile, 2K Games has teamed up with developer TransGaming to bring you an all-new XCOM game for the Mac, The Bureau - XCOM Declassified.

Available now on the Mac App Store, this premium third-person tactical shooter borrows certain strategy elements from the classic XCOM titles, but is nonetheless a standalone game in its own right...

Apple’s gift card only Black Friday deals launch in Australia

Just as we suspected yesterday, Apple's Black Friday promotion may disappoint even the most ardent of fans as this year Tim Cook & Co. have opted to treat shoppers to Apple Store gift cards instead of actual discounts on products. Apple's deals are now live on its Australian web store and we're expecting the U.S. Apple Store to come online with the promotion later in the day. The problem with Apple's gift card-only approach is that these things are redeemable against future purchases only.

As a result, eager shoppers who are on the lookout for real discounts on products, right there and then, will instead need to visit their retail or online Apple Store again in order to actually spend their credit...

Complete NFL wallpaper collection for iPhone

In the States, we are celebrating Thanksgiving today. Most certainly, there will be people sitting down to a family meal with all of the turkey and trimmings. Personally, I am ready for some mashed potatoes and gravy. Finally, the pumpkin pie will complete the experience.

However, Thanksgiving is not all about turkey and good food. Another American Thanksgiving tradition is football. No, not soccer, American football. On Thanksgiving Thursday, there are three main games, the highlight match up is at 8:30PM EST, with the Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the Baltimore Ravens.

Celebrating all that is American football, we have wallpapers for that key matchup. To make everyone happy, inside readers will find wallpapers for every NFL team, courtesy of an iDB reader...

Judge dismisses privacy lawsuit against Apple over location tracking

Reuters is reporting that US District Judge Lucy Koh has dismissed a privacy lawsuit against Apple this week. The suit alleged that the company was collecting location data through iOS devices, even when the geo-location feature was turned off.

Four plaintiffs joint-filed the suit—which is just one of several that followed Apple's 'Locationgate' scandal—in 2011, complaining that not only was Apple tracking users' location without consent, but they charged them too much for their iPhones...

Thai man allegedly electrocuted by charging iPhone

Another iPhone electrocution has been reported in Asia—this time in Thailand. A 28 year-old man was reportedly killed while using an iPhone 4s, which was believed to be charging using an unauthorized third-party charger.

According to a report from Thai language news outlet Daily News Thailand, on Monday, police in the Rayong province found an unnamed man lying dead on the floor of his home holding a burnt iPhone 4S in his left hand...

LifeProof launches new Touch ID-compatible, waterproof iPhone 5s case

Hot on the heels of Incipio's announcement of its new waterproof, Touch ID-friendly Atlas iPhone 5s case, LifeProof has unveiled a new 5s case of its own. It too is waterproof, and 100% compatible with Touch ID.

It's called the iPhone 5s nüüd Case, and LifeProof bills it as the "thinnest, lightest, all-protective iPhone 5s case ever made." It's fully submersible up to 6.6 feet, and is capable of surviving drops from up to 6.6 feet...

MacMall discounts iPads, Macs and more in Black Friday sale

Continuing on with our Black Friday coverage this week, popular online retailer MacMall has kicked off its big holiday sales event today. The deals, which will be good through midnight on November 29, include significant discounts on Macs, iPads and more.

Among the discounted products is the all-new iPad Air. MacMall is offering various deals on Apple's latest tablet, starting at $41 off for the 16GB Wi-Fi model all the way up to $70 off the 128GB. And it's taking $102 off all MacBook Airs and 13" MacBook Pros...

The best personal finance apps for iPhone

Keeping track of finances may come easy to some people, but not everyone is great with money. Some of us need a little extra help to keep us from coming up short at the end of the month.

If you want to keep track of your finances and that old ledger book is just not cutting it anymore, check out our list of best personal finance apps for the iPhone.

Apple’s 2013 Black Friday to be based around gift cards, not product discounts?

Black Friday, for our international readers, is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day, which is observed on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. While Thanksgiving is a national holiday and is celebrated as such, Black Friday is not.

What Black Friday does is it kicks off the Christmas shopping frenzy by having major retailers open extremely early and offer huge discounts.

Not Apple, America's greatest retailer since the turn of the century.

To Apple, Black Friday is a one-day shopping event with only modest discounts. Example: last year, Apple's Black Friday sale included $101 off MacBook Pros/Airs, a rather modest $41 off the iPad with Retina display and a paltry $31 off iPod touches, Airport Express base stations, the Magic Mouse and other select accessories.

And this time around, Apple's Black Friday promotion may focus on Gift cards rather than actual discounts on products, reports a well-informed blogger. Duh...

This is Facebook’s upcoming Reader feature

With so much great content being posted online on a daily basis and so little precious time to spare (talk about information overload), we as a technological society have grown dependent on various apps to scrap news articles and store them in pure text form for later reading. And boy are these services plentiful!

Not only do you get clutter-free content, but also can pull your saved articles from the cloud whenever and wherever a few minutes need killing - all in one app and without having to manage and bookmark the URLs.

I used to be a big believer in Marco Arment's Instapaper read-later app for the iPhone and iPad ($3.99 on the App Store). However, Marco's lack of vision, slow pace of development and just his general attitude on Twitter prompted me to make a switch to Pocket (formerly Read It Later) months ago.

Honestly, I never looked back since. Pocket comes free and provides tons of capabilities packaged into such a clean and elegant reading experience that's consistent and available across my iPhones, iPads and and Macs.

These services also cut down on time-sucks that are social networks because people spend less time actually reading news articles on Facebook and increasingly save the stories to Instapapers and Pockets of this world. Zuck & Co. have taken notice of the trend and have been testing a read-later Facebook feature for months, a new rumor has it...

Hands-free ‘OK Google’ search comes to your Mac

Yours truly is a huge fan of Google Now so it goes without saying I've long been yearning for that kind of hands-free voice searching on my Mac desktops and notebooks. Available via Google's free Search app for the iPhone and iPad since November 5, the cool feature dutifully listens to the 'OK Google' keyword which initiates a voice search. It's severely crippled, too, as 'OK Google' only works if the Search app is running, as opposed to the always-on implementation on the Nexus 5 and Moto X.

Blame it on Apple's strict policy that prohibits third-parties from listening to the microphone input in the background. Well, there are no such restrictions on Macs (yet) and Google has taken advantage of the fact and released a nice little extension for its browser allowing you to talk to Google (when you're using Chrome) hands-free, no typing required...