Tick Talk is your little newsreading friend

I'm still amazed by the diversity and fun of iPhone apps, even after downloading over 1,000 of them (yes, seriously). Tick Talk [iTunes link] wandered into our review queue and I happened to be delighted by what is a clever little app. It doesn't set out to change the world, and it's about a hair away from being just a tech demo, but I found it a lot of fun. What does it do? It is a clock and alarm, but it will read the time and top headlines off an RSS feed aloud, in a British-sounding computer voice.

It's easy enough to add an RSS feed (no Atom that I could see, just RSS) by typing in a website that you know has an RSS feed. I typed in TUAW.com, for example, and it switched from The New York Times to our TUAW feed. Remember, it only reads the headlines. Things can get garbled, of course, but the glowing blue mouth and eyes are soothing to watch. Maybe I just want a pocketable robot assistant, but I found Tick Talk quite fun.

Current price is $1.99.