Roll up, roll up - the greatest show in town is back as the English Premier League season returns, and that means it's time to start rearranging your football apps, subscribing to podcasts and working out whether you'd be happy or apoplectic were your club to splash out on a Neymar, and whether Pep Guardiola has spent enough on his defence this year. 

The TechRadar team (well, the UK bit at least) are huge football fans, and we're all genuinely excited that we're 

And to that end, we've pulled together the pick of the best football apps and podcasts to get you ready for the resumption of the richest and most entertaining league on the planet. 

Official Premier League - including Fantasy Football

After years in the wilderness last year's official Premier League app absolutely stunned us by being pretty okay. For anyone indulging in Fantasy Football this is an absolute must for team-fiddling in the 48 seconds between realising it's a minute until the deadline passes and realising you've selected your cheap and cheerful right back as your captain. If you just want fixtures and news - there are better apps around, but it's not too bad and free, so definitely worth a place on your bench/app folder. 

• iPhone/iPad: Premier League on App Store
• Android: Premier League on Play Store 

Sky Sports Football Score Centre

An absolute must-have app for any Sky subscriber - given the clips and video for each club. You can personalise to your favourite top flight club - although for us Burnley fans the amount of club specific content is significantly reduced compared to the traditional big guns.

• iPhone/iPad: Sky Sports Football Score Centre on App Store
• Android: Sky Sports Football Score Centre on Play Store 

BBC Sport

Another tried-and-tested offering, the BBC Sports app is popular in the office, with a fairly clean split between those that use Sky's offering and good old Auntie's when it comes to the live scores. Being the BBC, the news is accurate and no frills, plus you can set up notifications for your club(s) for instant updates on latest line-ups, goals and scores.

• iPhone/iPad: BBC Sport on App Store
• Android: BBC Sport on Play Store

Sky Go / Sky Q

Sky's flagship offering is the Sky Q app, which has become a reliable streamer for those with the top level box from Sky. 

For those without Sky's flagship offering, watching on phone, on Sky+ or people who subscribe to Sky Sports from another service, the Sky Go app is also decent and allows you to stream the 126 matches that Sky are showing live.

• iPhone/iPad: Sky Go on App Store
• Android: Sky Go on Play Store

• iPhone/iPad: Sky Q on App Store
• Android: Sky Q on Play Store

BT Sport

The other key broadcaster for the season when it comes to live games is BT, and its BT Sports app is, again, a must download if you're a subscriber bringing the wealth of European games as well as live streaming of the main sports channels - including the Premier League games shown.

• iPhone/iPad: BT Sport on App Store 
• Android: BT Sport on Play Store

BBC iPlayer / iPlayer Radio

The BBC's trusty Match of the Day highlights are once again on offer through the iPlayer app. You can watch it live at the time of broadcast through the app and it's available to download and watch on catch up later in the week.

Another broadcast option - when you can't look at the screen - is the BBC's iPlayer Radio which will allow you to listen to 5 Live and radio commentary of big matches and a host of football related shows.

• iPhone/iPad: iPlayer on App Store
• Android: iPlayer on Play Store

• iPhone/iPad: iPlayer Radio on App Store
• Android: iPlayer Radio on Play Store

NOW TV

Another live streaming option for the Sky matches is the Now TV app - where you can buy access to the key matches without an annual subscription.

It's a lower barrier of entry for many that don't want lengthy subs or simply want to pick and choose their live matches.

• iPhone/iPad: Now TV on App Store
• Android: Now TV ON Android

Guardian / Telegraph / Times / Independent / Sun / Mirror / ESPN et al

British football journalism is the best in the world, and most of the national papers have apps that allow you to read a wealth of football news, opinions and features.

Some of these require subscriptions - like the Times - some are controversial, and not all offer offline access. You can obviously use your browser rather than an app. 

Twitter - and the best football follows

A deal with Sky Sports means that Twitter will be showing bite-sized highlights to those that like their favourite moments to be short and snappy. Great for sharing that amazing overhead kick or brilliant 'tekkers'. Twitter is a dream for the latest news etc as well as clips from around the world of football and access to many of the big stars. We've included a list of the accounts which we follow below. 

Twitter on Apple app store
Twitter on Android

• iPhone/iPad: Twitter on App Store
• Android: Twitter on Play Store

A list of great football related follows on Twitter 

@skyfootball
@Skysportspl
@BTsport
@BTsportfootball
@mundialmag
@footballramble
@guardian_sport
@telefootball

Best football podcasts

And then we come to the podcasts: There are some brilliant club specific podcasts which we'll let you find by yourself but there's also no shortage of fantastic general football 'casts that will keep you entertained when watching isn't an option.

Sunday Supplement is the audio version of the hugely popular television show on Sky featuring some of the biggest names in football writing and hosted by the amicable Neil Ashton. Providing genuine insight and no shortage of disagreements, this is the thinking man's take on the beautiful game.

5 Lives Football Daily is the BBC's daily round up which is as long as it needs to be dependent on what's going on, and does include one lengthier show each week with a variety of ex-footballers and journalists

BT Sport Football Writers Podcast  is a new entry for this year. Some of the more cynical would suggest it's a copy of the Sky Sunday Supplement format - but ultimately it's whatever gets you through the early morning dog walk right? 

Football Ramble is a light-hearted, genuinely passionate podcast that celebrates the game. Marcus, Pete, Jim and Luke have picked up a huge following, do live shows and offer an ad free version and host of extra shows if you're prepared to pay for Acast, but the weekly classic and another (ostensibly) betting focused show remain freely available and well worth a listen

The Sky Sports Football Podcast is inconsistent but does include some gems - including the often brilliant Monday Night Football podcast where you can cheer along either Gary Neville / Jamie Carragher or whoever the presenter caught between them is - dependent on your footballing roots. 

From the very first ‘One last thing’ from Steve Jobs more than a decade ago, the iPhone has sat proudly on the throne of the coolest phone on the planet, and the truth is I still can’t see anyone changing that. 

Over the years there have been phones that you could argue have been better than the iPhones of the time – especially in the ‘S’ years – but nobody – not Samsung, not Motorola and not Google – has ever created a phone that garners the same attention or the same global reaction. 

I’m a rarity on the TechRadar team: someone who has been on iPhone for the entire decade in which we have existed. There are a plethora of reasons why I've never defected to the Android side of the fence – and don’t think for a second I haven’t thought the grass might just be that little bit more verdant over there. 

I work alongside the best phone reviewers on the planet; people who plucked the HTC Desire from obscurity and decreed it a five-star phone, who looked past the original OnePlus arriving bundled in tape and brown paper and realised its potential, and who currently have the Samsung Galaxy S8 as top choice in our ever-influential ‘Best Phones’ list. 

And – indeed – those phone reviewers have never given an iPhone a five-star write-up.

That’s not to say there haven’t been times when the iPhone has come close; the iPhone 4 was a tour de force, and the iPhone 6 so nearly broke the hoodoo, but ultimately the price, or features that could be found more impressively in other (often cheaper) handsets, kept it from getting the ultimate accolade – a rare five-star TechRadar review. 

Cool factor

So why, given all of this, have I remained so squarely parked in the iPhone camp? Because, quite simply, iPhones remain the coolest, easiest to use and most satisfying devices I have ever used. I’ve tried Android plenty of times, and I completely get that people like its adaptability, but for me the iPhone’s simplicity combined with clever, intuitive firmware upgrades and, yes, the Ive design ethos, always does enough to keep me loyal.

And here’s the crux: why is the iPhone the coolest phone? How can a phone that, quite possibly, your grandmother owns be cool, even for an instant? How can the best-selling single handset on the planet be cool? 

Because… of something. A hard-to-define mainstream appeal, exactly the secret Apple sauce that has turned its devices into world-beaters. 

You don’t need to be the best when it comes to features, you don’t need a shiny gimmick or a better camera. You certainly don’t need to be the cheapest, or come out of the left-field like an obscure indie band on the undercard at Glastonbury. 

You need to convince the vast majority of the world that you are cool. That’s a trick that Jobs finessed back in 2007, and his legacy has endured. 

Defining cool

In 2016 I asked the leader of the UK's CoolBrands Council, Steve Cheliotis, what criteria he used to define what cool actually meant. He felt there were four pillars: originality, innovation, authenticity and desirability. 

But does that actually fit for an iPhone? It was, to most people, the original smartphone, and although its achievements in terms of innovation are less obvious it has had its moments (not least with the apps that now run our lives). 

Authenticity has never been a problem for a company that genuinely lives and breathes its own products, and, let’s be completely honest, it remains the leader in terms of desirability, with a powerful marketing operation – including the clever way in which it corrals an army of committed fans and celebrities to do its work for it. 

"Apple ticks those boxes and most celebs you see are still running around with iPhones, so the public by and large aspire to have them as well," Cheliotis told me. 

Jobs was renowned for his showmanship, for making the Apple launch events something special; he had a rock star quality that we simply haven’t seen in the tech world since, but his real genius was in imbuing his products with his own vast reserves of confidence. 

For me, the iPhone, even without fundamental changes, has a swagger and a confidence that no other phone can match. It doesn’t demand attention because it gets it anyway; it doesn’t need gimmicks or headline specs because, well, it’s an iPhone. 

Remaining the best-seller for the majority of the 10 years of your existence is a tough ask. Being the best-seller for all that time and still managing to keep your cool – well that’s remarkable. 

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We’ve already expounded on whether ZTE’s 5G Gigabit is in fact a phone (tl;dr it isn’t) but, after being told it would be on show on the company’s MWC 2017 stand we were keen to go along and not get to grips with it.

The Gigabit was ensconced in a shiny clear plastic home, and the first surprise was that, viewed from the front, it gives every impression of being an actual phone. 

On closer inspection, however, including a bit of unsubtle peering underneath, you can see why ZTE’s executives were reluctant to say their phone was in a case – because the cabling is spilling out from underneath. 

Given that this is a phone that's prototyping tech rather than ever going on sale to the public, the aesthetic is arguably not all that important. 

But for the completists, the current iteration has a certain garage-built brutalist charm, with its visible screws, gaps around the screen and matt black scratched chassis. 

In terms of the pocket fit, the cabling could prove something of an issue, but if you've got the cachet of having the world’s fastest phone we think you could probably take the hit on that one, especially given the cheerful gold detailing on the cables themselves.

Functionality-wise, the killer (and indeed probably the only) app is a triumph of simplicity, taking its task (prove that 5G is fast) very seriously and showing the numbers in a simple and effective readout. 

We believe the font may be Helvetica Light.

Joking aside, we’re taking it on trust that ZTE’s display is, indeed, showing us an accurate figure, and that the 'pre-5G' is up and operational. 

That’s actually an important feat – while there remains an argument about whether it's the first to achieve the landmark, ZTE has done something impressive. But we've asserted that this couldn’t really be considered a phone, and the appearance on-stand has done little to dissuade us of this opinion. 

By putting the kit in a case it makes it much harder to show that this is a functional device, and without a real-world illustration of the download actually doing something other than a speed test, this is merely a showcase of potential, and not even a prototype of substance. 

*Still not a phone

• MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2017 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

During Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S3 reveal at Mobile World Congress, it was all-but confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S8 would be getting headphones from Austrian audio giant AKG bundled with it. 

The Tab S3 has been revealed, and part of the tablet’s feature set is speakers tuned by AKG, a company acquired by Samsung when it bought Harman (who had previously snapped up the Viennese company back in 1994).  

As this news was announced Samsung’s Mark Notton stated that AKG headphones “would be coming to the next flagship phone”. Which is obviously the Galaxy S8. 

Headphones are see as a new battleground in the world of premium phones and partnering with a famous audiophile brand is not new. 

Indeed Samsung’s rival LG teamed up with B&O for their V20 phone, and the HTC Sensation XE came with Beats buds. 

And when Apple bought Beats, the suggestion was that the iPhone would come with special branded buds - although that is yet to come to fruition. 

Regardless, Samsung using the quality in one of its acquire companies for the good of its products is definitely a good thing, and we look forward to seeing what the quality difference is. 

The furore around the all-new Nokia 3310 has been a joy for phone fans to behold - as thousands upon thousands get enthused all over again about an update to a phone that has become the most iconic of all time. 

But despite this early burst of enthusiasm, the new company behind this reimagining must be careful that it does not become a nostalgic millstone around its neck. 

A straw poll of what people were looking forward to from this year’s Mobile World Congress showed that rather than the new flagship LG G6 phone or the burgeoning Huawei P10, it was the Nokia retro phone that was picking up the most attention. 

You can understand why; this was a phone that established itself as a true classic; robust, functionally perfect in its simplicity and with a battery life measured in days not hours. And then there was the game that everyone still remembers: Snake (or Snake 2 to be strictly accurate).  

This new offering is a little different - and not just because its features have been dragged, probably kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. 

The Nokia phone brand is now licensed by a company called HMD, and manufacturing the new range of phones is being looked after by megalithic Chinese company Foxconn. 

But although capitalising on the retro cool of a revamped and low cost 3310, the popularity could also be a pitfall for HMD. 

The general consensus is that HMD will be looking to quickly push the loyal old Nokia fans on to its more modern wares (like the newly announced Nokia 6. 

In the same way as Nintendo appreciates our custom for its retro cool Nintendo Entertainment System Classic but would really really like it if we could all start spending a considerable larger number of our pennies on the new Nintendo Switch, HMD Nokia will be desperate to move us on from nostalgia to new fairly swiftly. 

In fact, there’s a very real danger that the new Nokia will be written off as a retro phone company, unless the smartphone offering can now step out from the shadow being generated by the classic chassis. 

It’s a view shared by Ian Fogg Head of Mobile Analysis at IHS Markit: “HMD must balance two competing brand goals with its new handsets,” he suggested.

“HMD must appeal to those consumers who recall the Nokia brand from when Nokia was the leading handset and smartphone manufacturer in the early 2000s while establishing Nokia as a modern and up to date brand again known for innovation.

“The launch of the new re-imagined Nokia 3310 featurephone threatens to overshadow HMD’s modern smartphones. HMD must avoid the Nokia brand being seen as purely a nostalgia brand.” 

It’s a cliche that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but as politicians in the past 12 months have proven it’s got a big chunk of truth attached to it. 

Ultimately HMD Nokia will be delighted with the wave of interest the 3310 has generated, and having a phone that is overshadowing your others in the range is not a bad problem to have. 

It just doesn't make it any easier to solve.  

It all started so well: “We’re very proud to announce the first 5G phone,” said ZTE to the assembled journalists, “the ZTE Gigabit”. 

A real landmark, you might think. A company best known for its mid-range offerings and a marginally under-appreciated but largely unremarkable Axon flagship range, rolling out a new superphone at MWC 2017 that would put even the likes of Samsung and Apple in the shade. 

The assembled journalists shuffled in their seats and craned their necks for a view of this phone. The vast majority of us had already had the ‘fastest ever phone’ news, under embargo, and were now waiting for our first glimpse of the handset itself. 

But nothing to show yet. No phone in ZTE man's hand. No cringey lifestyle photo on the presentation of someone checking their phone out while skateboarding through a picturesque and demographically cosmopolitan generic European city. No. Not yet. 

First some slides on the technology – how 5G would revolutionise human communications, facilitate live VR 4K streaming, download a Tidal track in seconds. How this could bring 'emotion engines’ and AI capability to our handsets. How at some point ZTE would roll some of this technology into its flagship Axon range.

And then… “And that brings a close to our presentation. Please give us some time to reset for any questions.” 

Well. Okay, I had a question. “The Gigabit phone you announced sounds very exciting,” I said. “Do you have, you know, a phone we can look at today.” 

A brief pause. “The Gigabit will be on the stand at MWC.” Another pause. "It’s not actually in a case.” A murmur from the people in the room. Another question, and then someone from a German publication tried again. “About the Gigabit. Is this an actual phone that you are going to sell?” 

“This is a commercial technology that’s a couple of years away,” came the reply. “We will see some of this technology in our flagship Axon range.”

As the press conference ended, the chat in the room became a little more pointed. “So what have they actually announced? A circuit board?” 

Rumor has it that the Gigabit phone on show at the ZTE stand in Barcelona’s MWC will constitute a screen that shows how fast the phone is. You can’t use it to make calls, and it won’t be running a new version of Android or showcase a design. 

It will be a screen, attached to some (admittedly cutting-edge) circuit boards, including the latest Snapdragon 835 offering, showing that 5G is, unsurprisingly, really, really fast.

It’s easy to mock. Admittedly, if the circuit boards can fit in a phone chassis and do indeed prove that what they’re calling 'pre 5G' can help us all into a new era then it’s not an insignificant achievement.

I’d just contend that it doesn’t really qualify as a phone.

Yes, you could argue that the box-free Raspberry Pi is still a computer. But calling a device that doesn’t really operate very much like a phone, that’s not going to ever be sold to a consumer, and that a company couldn’t even hold up in front of journalists a phone is a bit of a reach.

I’d have taken a phone that was being released in six months and was still duct-taped together. I’d have even grudgingly accepted a completed concept phone that was never going on sale. But I’m afraid the ZTE Gigabit does’t qualify as the world’s fastest phone… based on the fact that it’s not a phone.

It’s the world’s fastest grouping of phone technologies soldered together and left out of a case. Which is not nearly as good a headline.

MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest exhibition for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting live from Barcelona all week to bring you the very latest from the show floor. Head to our dedicated MWC 2017 hub to see all the new releases, along with TechRadar's world-class analysis and buying advice about your next phone.

Sky has announced that Sky Mobile is launching today, offering up a flexible mobile service with some interesting additions for those that already subscribe to the company’s television offering. 

After announcing the service late last year, Sky has wasted no time in rolling out Sky Mobile. Price-wise, for Sky’s existing subscribers the offer is significant, with only the data plans costing money and calls and texts free. 

And, for the first time, Sky+ TV customers can sync their Sky+ recordings with their phone. 

Interestingly all customers get the ability to roll all of their unused data into a ‘piggybank’ where it can be used whenever needed for three years.

Flexible

“Right now mobile contracts are inflexible and confusing and we all know people are buying more data than they need to avoid those extra charges", said UK chief executive Stephen van Rooyen. 

“With Sky Mobile we’ve provided the solution, offering flexibility and great value so our customers’ unused data will be theirs to keep and they can create a plan that’s right for them, month to month. 

“And there’s even more benefits for Sky TV customers with free UK calls and texts, plus the ability to sync with their Sky+ box.”

The network is an MVNO - using O2’s existing infrastructure - with 1GB, 3GB and 5GB plans priced at £10, £15 and £20 per month respectively. But, as we said, those not also subscribing to Sky TV will have to fork out extra for minutes and texts.
 

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