Mark Bridge writes:

“He knows if you’ve been bad or good...”

You don’t need to be Santa Claus to appreciate that RIM’s quarterly results have marked a disappointing end to a disappointing year. Yes, the company’s sold millions of BlackBerry phones - but PlayBook sales haven’t been good, its new OS is delayed and its market share appears to be falling. You could argue that 2012 is a make-or-break year for Research In Motion... or at least for its current management.

Ah yes, 2012. It’s going to be an interesting year for the mobile phone industry. Busy. Challenging. Musical. Increasingly dangerous. All of this and more.

Our podcast on Friday included predictions for next year from the expert voices of Hans Eriksson, Dr Windsor Holden, Steve Litchfield, Dr Mark Smith and Jack Wraith MBE. Smartphone sales, market shares, economic conditions, infrastructure issues and crime fighting were all on the festive menu; if you’ve not yet heard the programme, listen on our website or download it from iTunes. Iain, James and I will be making our own 2012 predictions in Wednesday’s show.

Also making predictions last week were ABI Research (who told us what wouldn’t be happening next year), Lookout Mobile Security (which warned against cyber-criminals, as you’d expect) and Shazam (using its mobile music discovery service to forecast next year’s hits).

Aside from crystal ball gazing, it’s been a week of relatively unconnected stories. For example, journalists can now tweet in UK courts without asking permission, the Apple iPhone has been doing some unexpected things, ScotRail has announced a train timetable app that doesn’t charge a booking fee and the UK is a leader when it comes to mobile internet use. See what I mean?

As you’d probably guessed, we’ll be taking a bit of a break over Christmas. On Wednesday we’ll be making our annual predictions about the mobile industry and will also look back at last year’s thoughts - and we’ll return with our first podcast of the new year on 4th January. Our website will be updated with any big news stories that happen between the two broadcasts... but this is probably as good an opportunity as any for me to wish you a Happy Christmas and an equally Happy New Year. Thanks for your company in 2011; it wouldn’t have been the same without you!