The 2010 world cup in South Africa looks promising to be the best yet.  There’s huge quantities of talent spread out across the Groups.  In addition to the football being played on the pitch, here are five reasons this summer’s world cup will be the best yet for the fans.

1. HD - The beautiful game in High Definition is truly a remarkable thing to see.  Any football enthusiast will tell you the difference between standard definition and HD is night and day. World Cup 2006 was the first to be shown in HD, but it was rare.  It was far less common for someone to own an HD television than it is now as they were more expensive and people had yet to see a need.  HD programming was not yet easily available to everyone, let alone on ESPN.  It was more common on the networks, which is why World Cup 2006 games being seen in HD were mostly on ABC .  HD was still in the beginning stages just four years ago.

2. DVR and Tivo – Similar to #1, DVR’s and Tivo’s were far less common in 2006. World Cup matches are on during typical work hours on weekdays.  While I think the world should be allowed the month off, and I’m sure other football fans will agree, it’s not possible for everyone to watch the matches live.  So we’ll just have to be content with getting through the day to come home and watch the recorded matches. Your spouse will understand (hopefully).

3. Familiarity and Knowledge - Football fans, especially in the United States, are exponentially more exposed to football and the leagues around the world than we were 4 years ago.  Thanks to ESPN, Fox Soccer, GOLTV, and Setanta we have been able to follow leagues overseas like never before.  We take these things for granted now, but it was far more difficult just four years ago to do this.  This means we are much more familiar and knowledgeable of the players of the 32 countries competing this summer. Not only do we get to see the most popular players more often, but we have the ability to be familiar with the lesser known players.  It won’t just be the Ronaldo’s, Messi’s, and Rooney’s that grab our attention this summer, but our relationship with the De Jong’s, Assou-Ekotto’s, and Song’s will be just as appreciated.

4. Location – This World Cup is the first to be played in the continent in the history of the competition.  I can only imagine the sense of pride this brings to the 5 African national teams competing to do well, including the host country which has the potential to advance.  South Africa will also be a great venue for the World Cup because 6 of the 10 stadiums hosting the matches have been completed or renovated in the last 2 years, giving fans a new and unique atmosphere throughout the tournament.

5. Devices - Technology has given us the ability to get more involved with the World Cup.  ESPN3 has given us the ability to watch the matches from our computers and even on replay later. ESPN Mobile TV streams games to our cell phones, iPads and iPhones (via Mobi TV), or FLOTV devices. ESPN has also launched an official World Cup app that brings news, updates, and stats for everything World Cup. EA Sports has come out with the official 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa video game available on April 27th, putting you in the tournament.

Technology has come a long way in the last four years.  I can’t even imagine what World Cup 2014 will bring us.  Why do you think World Cup South Africa 2010 will be the best?

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The Premier League has launched its own official Premier League iPhone App for soccer fans around the world. We’ve been waiting forever for something like this. And the technologically slow Premier League has finally caught up with the times.

The features of the app include:

• Updates on the long list of the Premier League’s latest legal filings. Find out what’s happening with their lawsuit against YouTube, their legal threats against websites that show crests for Premier League teams, and their attempts to stop users on Twitter sharing match reports of Premier League games.
• The debt index. Instead of wondering how much debt the Premier League clubs are in, you can find out the exact number by using this feature on the app. The chart is updated daily to show the massive debt and how it dwarfs those nansy-pansy European clubs, and
• The long list of who has rights to what in each country. If you’ve ever wondered who has the rights to show the Premier League in each country, broken down by the different forms of rights packages such as broadband, television, radio and mobile, you can now use this feature of the app to finally unlock the secrets that the Premier League have never revealed before.

Download the Premier League iPhone app today.

I’m really proud to announce that EPL Talk has just launched a brand-new iPhone app today. If you’re a regular reader of this site and you own an iPhone app, it’s definitely a must-have.

The EPL Talk iPhone app features:

• The latest blog posts (updated as soon as new articles are published),
• A comments feed (updated whenever someone adds a new comment to any thread),
• The latest episodes of  the EPL Talk Podcast (updated daily),
• The latest Premier League-related news items from the EPL Talk Twitter feed (updated throughout the day), and
• EPL Talk’s Flickr feed, which is updated whenever there are new Premier League-related photographs uploaded to the EPL Talk Flickr account.

The best part about the iPhone app is that it’s completely free. Plus it’s advertising free.

If you have an iPhone, get the EPL Talk iPhone app today either through iTunes or the App Store feature on your phone.

We’re also working on getting an EPL Talk app created for phones that run Android so stay tuned for news about that in the near future.

If you have the EPL Talk Podcast iPhone app, which was released a few months ago, we will still continue to support that.

Enjoy the app and feel free to post your feedback about it here.

If you’re addicted to your iPhone as much as I am, you’ve probably been disappointed that some crucial iPhone soccer apps don’t exist in the App store. Here are the top 4 that are missing:

1. Official Fantasy Premier League iPhone App. Out of all of the apps that are missing, this is the one I would use the most if it was available. Plus, this is the one that is most logical to be accessed by a mobile device. The app would be perfect to allow you to log in to your account and change your fantasy team around as well as to see how many points you scored each week.
2. Fantasy Football Scout iPhone App. Fantasy Football Scout is one of our favorite sites to help with your fantasy picks each week. But if an app could be created for that site that lists the latest injury news as well as predicted line-ups, that would definitely be incredibly useful for football fans who are away from their desktops or laptops.
3. Soccer TV Guide iPhone App. There needs to be one comprehensive guide that only features the soccer games in your country — or even better in your local coverage area. This one would surely be used by soccer fans all the time especially to find out the last-minute changes to the TV schedule.
4. Fox Soccer Channel iPhone App. A FSC branded iPhone app would be a great way for Fox Soccer Channel to promote their network, their TV schedule and their latest news stories from FoxSoccer.com.

Are there are any iPhone apps you’d love to see that aren’t listed above that should be added to the App Store? Click the comments link below and share your opinion. You can also review the article on the Top 5 Essential iPhone Apps For Soccer Fans if you have an iPhone but don’t know which iPhone apps to get.

Also, be sure to check out the EPL Talk iPhone App which is available via the App Store and is automatically updated with all of the latest EPL Talk Podcast episodes as they are released.