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This is iF Poems, a new educational app aimed at children, but with much to offer to grown-ups too.

Iconic Brit kids comic The Beano has made its debut on the iOS App Store, with a hidden treat inside for kids: five free issues for the grabbing.

Today’s – probably this week’s – Best Thing Ever is the amazing, ear-exploding wonder that is Brian Blessed Alarm Clock.

(Photo by Adam Riggall, used with thanks under Creative Commons license)

Former Englishman-in-New-York Sting has been speaking to journalists to plug his solo career retrospective album, the 25 Years box set. And in his opinion, the music industry is facing another big change. The CD is dead. And its replacement is apps.

Making an album of new songs seems to be too much like hard work for bands these days. It’s so much easier to pay some developers to make an app instead.

Not many opera companies have ventured on to the App Store, but London’s Royal Opera House has and the result is something unexpected: not a listings app, not a tickets app, not anything you’d normally associate with opera. It’s a game. And it’s great.

The new Doctor Who Encyclopedia for iOS claims to offer everything a Who fan might need to know about the three most recent incarnations of TV’s best-known time traveller. But this is one app that could do with a zap from a sonic screwdriver: although it’s stuffed full of facts, the presentation could be improved.

UK newspaper The Independent launched an iPad app this morning, but it still needs a little work.

The free app is a far cry from the offering by The Guardian, which we raved about recently, but The Indie (as it is affectionately known by UK hacks) has had to struggle by on a tiny budget for decades. It’s not going to have the same sort of cash to spend on digital news projects.

Sadly, that shows in this morning’s newly-launched app. It’s functional, but very basic. There’s no access to an archive of issues; you get today’s paper, swiftly downloaded to your device when you open the app (so offline reading is possible).

But as a newspaper reading experience, it’s disappointing. You can’t swipe your way between articles. The primary navigation tool is an icon of a bullet list in the top left corner – tap this and you’ll see links to section front pages, and from those you can reach individual stories. The upshot is a lot of tapping to move around, which soon feels like hard work.

Stranger still, today’s launch issue shows signs of being released before it’s ready. On story pages, the newspaper’s masthead graphic doesn’t quite fit into the space allocated for it, so the line immediately below cuts through the graphic. Worse still, there are broken images all over the place, even on the front page. Teething problems, no doubt, but a shame they weren’t spotted before the app was made public.

If you’re a regular reader of The Indie and like reading news on your iPad, you’ll probably jump to get this app. But as it stands right now, there’s little on offer here to tempt people away from other news apps.

[xrr rating=40%]

The BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones wanted to find out which smartphone was the best listener, so he conducted a quick test of his own.

He spoke the same text into a Siri-equipped iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and compared the transcribed results.

The Guardian‘s new iPad app is a triumph. It’s an excellent daily newspaper in tablet form, designed to make the most of the tablet format without over-indulging in it.

I confess: when I first looked at Apple’s new Newsstand app when iOS5 was released last week, I felt nonplussed. There didn’t seem to be any content in the store that I’d want to subscribe to. I became one of the many people who tried to find ways to hide the Newsstand icon altogether.

Apple’s release of iOS5 caused “the highest ever traffic” over the UK broadband network, BT has confirmed.

We reported yesterday that demand for iOS5 caused “unprecendented” broadband traffic for some UK internet service providers – but today, BT (which manages the entire national broadband network as well as running its own ISP business, BT Retail) sent the following statement to Cult of Mac:

Over the last two nights, BT has experienced the highest ever traffic levels over the UK broadband network.

Demand for yesterday’s iOS 5 release combined with all the associated updates for OS X and other apps caused “unprecedented levels” of traffic over one UK broadband network.

Writing on their own network status alerts site, engineers at UK ISP AAISP reported that “something was up” at 8.48pm UK time last night.

Here in the UK, the BBC has released a beta version of a redesigned website, and what’s striking about it is how much it owes to the Beeb’s iPlayer app for iPad.

There’s a treat for photography fans this morning, with the launch of the British Journal of Photography‘s official iPad app.

Grocery stores in the UK are about to get a whole lot more interesting. The Telegraph is reporting that the Sainsbury supermarket will start offering shopping carts to customers with built-in iPad docks.

That’s right, you’ll be able to check email while on your iPad while you shop. Just try to not hit anyone else in the aisle with your cart.

Are you stressed?

Of course you are. We’re all stressed. What with global economic meltdown, internet security rapidly becoming a joke, unrest in Libya and the Middle East, gas prices soaring, even our beloved newspaper barons under attack from pretty much everyone. It’s a stressful time.

What we need is something soothing to calm our furrowed brows. What we need is a cup of tea. And some pictures of kittens.

Customers in UK pizza chain Pizza Express can now pay their bills with a Paypal account via an iPhone.

There are many reasons to envy the British. Marmite. Branston Pickle. Savory Pies. First Run Doctor Who. Kelly Brook. Now there’s a new reason to envy them: they can pick up an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2 for just £99, or around $162.

Music lovers, pay attention: your festivals will be digitized. UK cell phone network Orange has just announced an mobile app (for all platforms, not just iOS) for this year’s Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset, UK.

Retailers have announced the U.K. launch date of RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook today, in addition to a price list that matches that of Apple’s iPad 2. But who will buy it?

A unique service offering to unlock any GSM iPhone, no jailbreaks required, has suddenly shut down, leaving many customers awaiting refunds. Increased scrutiny from Apple may very well be responsible… and curiously, even the providers of the service had no idea how it worked, or why it’s all stopped.

For some time yesterday, UK carrier Three gave customers the opportunity to purchase the white iPhone 4 through its website for delivery on Wednesday, April 20th. The carrier later removed the listing as news spread over the web, but was this simply an error, or did Three just reveal the device’s launch date?

Well, recent reports have suggested that the device is now in production, and will launch by the end of April. Although Apple is yet to give customers an official date, it may have provided this information to carriers.

Having said that, we still think someone at Three made a slight cock up, and that this listing means nothing. It’s not the first time the carrier has listed the device on its website either; back in January the white iPhone 4 appeared on Three’s website, thought it was listed as “out of stock.”

[via 9to5 Mac]

Wireless carriers in the United Kingdom are drastically lowering their subsidized prices on the original iPad, strongly suggesting that they are clearing inventory in anticipation of the imminent launch of the iPad 2.

British iPhone owners who enjoy foul-mouthed comedy will be delighted to learn that there’s a new, official Malcolm Tucker iPhone app to download for a mere four fine English pounds.

Tucker is the brutal, thuggish political spin doctor character in UK comedy show The Thick Of It. His adventures in swearing are legendary.

“Foul-mouthed” hardly does him justice, to be honest. If there’s a %^&@ way he can think of to @*(! your day and shove your @*($@$@% through your @£[/*$ until you’re bleeding £!*++ out of your !&@*, Tucker will say so.

And now he’s on your iPhone – or you’re on his, so to speak. The Missing Phone app pretends to be Tucker’s phone, and you’ve just found it. I’ll leave you to guess which four-letter passcode might unlock it, and discover the top-secret emails and text messages stored within.

This little lot (22 Macs, 2 PCs) belongs to London-based 21-year-old student Brent (who declined to give us his surname). It’s one of the latest pics in his Mactastic Flickr stream which is jam packed with Macs, iPods and iPads. Only some of them are pictured in use as doorstops.

Brent says: “You can put it down to just not having time to sell the older models every time I upgrade. As a result of this, I’ve gained a collection.”

His current working machines are a 27″ iMac and a MacBook Pro. He’s not got one of the new Airs yet but I’m pretty sure he’ll have one soon…