There’s nothing like wandering through the Outback, camping under the stars…with an iPad: It can help identify the constellation you’re gazing at, let you sneak in a few chapters from your latest read or track your odyssey. That is, if you can keep the thing juiced.

Solar power is the obvious choice, but there aren’t many portable solar panels with the ability to charge the iPad; add the requirement that the panel be truly rugged and your choices become very, very slim. Luckily, the Joos Orange solar panel ($150), the outfit’s first product, may be the only choice you’ll need to consider.

I’ve been a bit quiet lately while considering the possible reasons why my new iPhone 4S has the worst battery life of any iPhone I’ve ever owned. Normally by now I would have written some battery troubleshooting tips to share with all of you. However, this time around the problem is anything but normal and the usual tips aren’t helping. So I’ve been quiet about this.

I cannot say the same thing about Apple’s discussion forums since the conversation about battery life there is reaching epic proportions and the conversation is rather loud.

It might be about to get a lot quieter with this tip, which seems to be working for me.

A handy way to link up with friends? You bet. Evil? Quite possibly. Lame? That’s what a friend of mine thought. Find My Friends, Apple’s newest app, is a new location tool that can be used to great effect — or become one huge, scary headache.

Here’s an FAQ with all you need to know about navigating safely through the app.

Mona Simpson, Steve Jobs’s sister, published her eulogy for her brother in The New York Times today. The piece is the most touching, intimate tribute to Steve we’ve seen since his passing.

The most wonderful time of the year isn’t Christmas, it’s Halloween. No other day on the calendar gives you an excuse to dress up like Han Solo and go out on the prowl in search of the sexiest version of Princess Leia you can find. A lot of our readers decided to celebrate Halloween with a tribute to their favorite computer company, so we asked our Twitter followers to tweet us pics their Apple inspired Halloween costumes and jack o’-lanterns.

If you have a picture of your Apple themed costume or jack o’ lantern and would like for us to include it in the gallery, tweet it over to us @cultofmac

Here are some of the best pictures from last night:

This could be fake, but it certainly looks real to us: iPhone hackers chpwn and Steve Troughton say they’ve gotten Siri working on the iPhone 4 and fourth-gen iPod touch, and they’ve got video to prove it. So it is possible. Sadly, though, both hackers say that whatever method they used for exploit is not for public release any time soon, so the rest of us poor suckers will just have to keep twiddling our thumbs.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple has purchased its second 3D mapping company called C3 Technologies. Apple bought a company called Poly9 last summer that also specializes in 3D mapping technology.

Rumors have said for years that Apple is working to drastically improve its iOS Maps application with in-house features and improvements. The purchase of C3 Technologies suggests that Apple is working to bring revolutionary 3D technology and hi-quality image rendering to its Maps app on the iOS platform.

In the immediate aftermath of Steve Jobs’ death on October 5, the praise was overwhelming.

He was the greatest CEO in history, a prescient visionary, prolific inventor, influential designer, brilliant artist. He could walk across San Francisco Bay without getting his New Balance 991 sneakers wet, bend light with his will and turn dog shit into gold.

Then the backlash hit.

About a week after Jobs’ death, the promotional tour for Steve Jobs, the Walter Isaacson biography, began in ernest. This week, the book itself hit. And so did the “dark side” revelations. Plus, former rivals and Apple employees with an axe to grind came pouring out of the woodwork to tell snarky stories about Jobs’ flawed morality, bizarre personality and petty misconduct.

As they are wont to do, the lame-stream media pounced on the negative angle.

The praise was too much. But so is the ongoing character assassination. It’s time to bring the pendulum back to the center, and provide context for some of the most egregious dissing.

In particular, there are four major falsehoods about Jobs being thrown around in the past three weeks that need to be addressed.

In iOS 5 Apple implemented a handy feature that lets you mark multiple emails as read. In the stock Mail app, multiple emails can be selected and marked quickly to save you the time and hassle of having to go through each individual message one by one. 

Trident’s new A.M.S. iPhone 4/S case is edgy. And maybe dangerous. It’s probably what Q would give Bond to protect his iPhone, except it doesn’t come equipped with rocket launchers or a laser.

A 22-year-old man got a 25-year jail sentence for a ripping off part of a man’s pinkie while stealing an iPad.

The Denver Post reported that Brandon Smith apologized to the victim, Bill Jordan, who did not appear in court for the sentencing hearing “because he fears for his life.”

For all those kids out there frenziedly ringing doorbells or knocking on doors till your knuckles hurt: If no one’s coming out to rain candy into your little plastic jack-o-lantern, they’re probably just taking advantage of OnLive’s Halloween weekend of temporarily free-to-play games and too busy to come to the door.

Snap your Halloween party pics right by taking photobooth-style shots from your iPhone with Hipstamatic’s Incredibooth — offered free over the weekend.

According to the iPhone 4S Siri Operating Manual, “Siri is a learning computer that adapts to your environment and personality, answering your requests as it identifies your wants and needs.”

But what happens when Siri makes an evolutionary leap in intelligence while you and your drunken buddies are goofing off with her? As this hysterical video from LaughPong makes clear, it can lead to a moment of extreme awkwardness.

Seriously, if there’s one Siri humor video you watch, watch this one. I think it’s the funniest Siri gag yet.

(Thanks, Brittany!)

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.