It’s that time of the year, folks. What’s not to love about an Apple-themed pumpkin carving on Halloween weekend?

Reader Glenn sent in the above picture of his Steve Jobs pumpkin. We want to see what fine creations you guys come up with, too!

For those of us that have something to hide, you’ll be happy to know that in iOS 5 Safari offers a private internet browsing mode. Once it is toggled on it prevents Safari from compiling a history of your browser activity.

Having problems with battery life since upgrading to the iPhone 4S? Apple may be getting in touch with you to help them troubleshoot your battery problems, hopefully solving the iPhone 4S’s woeful drainage issues once and for all.

While this illustration may be taking the point a little too far, it does have a point.  Siri may have an attitude now, but at least it’s not self-aware.

Yet.

Great news for iOS gamers: the Assassin’s Creed series is coming to iPhones and iPads. But expect a radical formula change when Assassin’s Creed: Recollection hits the App Store. Instead of freely exploring an ancient city in search of targets to assassinate, Assassin’s Creed: Recollection is a board game.

30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy (with some help from Law and Order: SVU‘s Richard Belzer and Ice-T) makes a compelling case for why whatever Steve Jobs’s “I finally cracked it!” moment was when it comes to solving the so-called television problem, it probably wasn’t a Siri-controlled iTV.

[via iClarified]

Could one of the executives Steve Jobs handpicked for Apple’s Board of Directors be inept? That’s the question some investors are raising following news that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating board member Andrea Jung’s role as CEO of Avon Products.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6kZ89OzsPY

The iPhone 4S arrives in Italy today – along with another 22 countries – and the Italians are so into it, they are apparently standing in orderly lines to get it.*

Outside the Roma Est store in the country’s capital, however, Apple employees went on strike.

It’s never a good sign when you have to give your tablets away in order to compete with Apple’s iPad. A month after cutting consumer prices on its PlayBook, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is telling businesses they’ll throw in a free tablet if they buy two of the devices. The only thing missing from this desperate plea for sales is the word “please.”

Nokia may finally have found its answer to the iPhone, a pair of new Lumia Windows phones that one analyst tells investors is ‘competitive’ with the Apple smartphone.

If Apple was hoping to unveil its iPhone for customers of China’s third-largest mobile carrier in the world’s largest cell phone market, it may have to wait. China Telecom may have to delay introducing the handset until mid-2012, according to a Friday report citing supplier checks.

It’s been a long year. You deserve to treat yourself, and your Mac, to some beautiful new apps to make life easier. No one wants to spend $350 on an app shopping spree though, so we’re here to get you the hookup on 10 amazing apps while saving you a quantified butt-ton of money at the same time.

This week Cult of Mac Deals and StackSocial are bringing you ten apps to make your Mac driven life a thousand times better. We’ve scored you a deal to that saves 86% off the original price. 10 apps for $49 instead of the advertised $366?! This is the biggest deal we’ve had yet. Here’s a run down of the ten apps that are included in our Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle.

Although we Yanks and select Euros already have iPhone 4Ses in our pockets, the iPhone 4S launch is hardly over. Far from it.

Today, Apple started selling the iPhone 4S in twenty-two other countries. Those countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Any Liechtensteiners care to report on how the lines are looking over there?

Early betas of Adobe’s upcoming Photoshop CS6 software reveal that the application has been given a complete overhaul and features a darker user interface that looks a lot like Apple’s Aperture software. In addition to the new look, the software also features new 3D capabilities, an autosave facility, and a ton of other new tools.

Don’t underestimate the power of China when it comes to the cellphone market. ZTE, based in the populous Asian nation, became the world’s No. 4 maker of mobile phones, overtaking Apple, which held the spot in the previous three-month period.

While Apple’s latest gadgets are a must-have for some, they’re not all that useful for iOS jailbreakers. The company’s new iPhone 4S, along with the iPad 2, cannot be jailbroken when running iOS 5. But thanks to the iPhone Dev-Team, it won’t be long before you’re using Cydia on them.

Your Mac’s home directory, or home folder, is represented by a little house in the Finder and is the default location for your documents, music, photos and other items on your computer. The name of the home folder is also your Mac account username, or “shortname” in UNIX parlance.

Since these items are related, the process for renaming the home folder and changing your username is similar to moving your home folder to another location such as a second hard drive. Here’s how it’s done.

Apple is pushing out more updates to computers released in 2011 to enable Lion Internet recovery. Initially this recovery feature was only available on the MacBook Air and Mac Mini when they made their debut in July.  Recently, however, Apple made it available on certain model MacBook notebooks and this week it was released for early 2011 iMacs like the one I purchased in June.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m surprised that Apple enabled Lion Internet Recovery on my iMac. I thought they’d hold out and only offer it on a refreshed model as an incentive to upgrade.

Apple’s Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) was integrated into the company’s Mac OS X platform back in 2004, and made its way into QuickTime and iTunes software shortly afterwards. Today, Apple has released the audio codec as open source project.

We’ve seen a shedload of Steve Jobs tributes since he passed away on October 5, but when it comes to paying tribute with one of the devices Steve created, this is the most impressive we’ve seen so far. This iPhone 4 mod was devised by a Chinese student, and it’s a tribute Apple would be proud of.

No doubt, leather requires some sacrifice. Those who want their iPads wrapped with animal hide usually have to make do with considerably more bulk, less usability or less money in the bank account — or, most often, all three. But Sena’s new Florence iPad 2 case ($70) is a surprising exception.

Planetary isn’t the most practical iPad app, but it’s absolutely one of the prettiest. The app reads your iTunes collection, then forms a gorgeous miniature galaxy — complete with elegantly animated solar flares — on your iPad, where the suns, orbiting planets and moons all represent artists, albums and songs respectively.

Wizardry has to be one of the longest lived franchises in gaming history — and is especially beloved by us, because the dungeon RPG’s first-ever appearance was on an Apple II. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls will be the newest title in the 30-odd-year lineage when it debuts on November 3 for the iPhone.

This week Cult of Mac Deals took the deals hub to the next level and pumped out two great deals for our readers. Because everyone was so enthusiastic about the Fall 2011 Mac SuperBundle that we announced yesterday, we wanted to remind you that we’ll still be carrying the Prizmo deal for another four days. Ever thought about getting a scanner, but held back because of size and cost? Do you have a Mac and a digital camera? Then good news! Prizmo for Mac offers a great solution to accomplish your scanning needs without the extra hardware. So, what can Prizmo do for you?

Last year, a poll by the Consumer Electronics Association found that Apple’s iPad came in second to world peace for Christmas desires.

If you believe another poll from a U.K. app developer, world peace is soo last year. Now all anyone wants is an a ton of money, closely followed by an iPad.