Mark Bridge writes:

As 2011 draws to a close, many of us start looking towards 2012 and wondering what’ll be happening in the mobile phone industry. Here at The Fonecast we’ve invited a handful of industry experts and business leaders to offer us their thoughts about the coming year.

Today’s podcast contains analysis and insight from Hans Eriksson, Steve Litchfield, Dr Windsor Holden, Dr Mark Smith and Jack Wraith MBE.

Mark Bridge writes:

This time of year sees many pundits from within the mobile industry doing their best to predict events that’ll grab headlines in the next 12 months. In fact, we’ll be offering our own predictions in a couple of special podcasts lined up in the next few days.

Mark Bridge writes:

With less than a fortnight until Christmas, it’s probably time to order the turkey and start thinking about gifts. What could be a better present than being given your very own mobile operating system?

That’s what’s happening over at HP, which is making its webOS software available to the open source community. The big question now is whether developers will respond with “lovely, just what I wanted” or a slightly embarrassed “oh, I’ve already got one of those.”

Mark Bridge writes:

This week’s podcast feature from TheFonecast.com takes a look at mobile telecare: using mobile telecommunications to help elderly people and those with special needs.

UK-based Burnside Telecom has recently announced a couple of telecare products that take advantage of the company’s expertise in producing ‘fixed cellular’ devices, so I’ve been talking to managing director Colin Aitken about these new products.

Mark Bridge writes:

By now you already know the basics. More and more people have smartphones - and they’re becoming an essential companion. They’re taking over from digital cameras, they’re taking over from portable gaming consoles, they’re taking over from music players… and now they’re taking over from Christmas cards. Yes, Christmas cards.

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.