Mark Bridge writes:

In a way, it’s hard to believe that the first Apple iPhone wasn’t seen in public until this day seven years ago. It - and the trend towards one-piece smartphones with hardly any buttons - seems to have been with us for much longer.

Apple has announced a ‘USB Power Adapter Takeback Program’ to help reassure customers about the safety of iPhone chargers.

A number of recent media reports have suggested that some counterfeit chargers or third-party chargers may be dangerous, with a woman in China reportedly killed and a Chinese man seriously injured in separate incidents last month.

Yesterday evening Apple announced results for the third quarter of its financial year, with revenue up just 1% year-on-year to $35.3 billion and net profit down over 21% to $6.9 billion.

31.2 million iPhones were sold during the April-June period, increasing year-on-year by 20% to a record for that quarter, while iPad sales fell 14% to 14.6 million units.

Apple announced financial results last night for the 13-week period until 29th December 2012, the first quarter of its 2013 financial year. Quarterly revenue reached a company record of $54.5 billion while net profit was $13.1 billion.

That’s an 18% year-on-year increase in revenue, although the profit figure was almost unchanged.

Apple says its customers have downloaded more than 40 billion applications from its App Store, with almost half of them happening last year.

In fact, December alone saw over two million app downloads.

Mark Windle, head of marketing at OpenCloud, predicts that this year’s reduction in the number of traditional telecoms operators in some countries will provide an opportunity for other operators to innovate and capture market share in 2016.

He says next year will be a year of rapid change for telecoms… whether it’s MVNO disruption, competitive tariff pricing or simply defence from the ‘dark art’ of hacking.

Mark Bridge writes:

The most memorable moments in life often go unrecorded. You don't have your camera in your hands. Your finger is still hovering over the 'pause' button on your audio recorder. Or you were simply too busy experiencing whatever was happening. It's all about the one that got away.

That's where Kapture can help.

Mark Bridge writes:

James Rosewell shows me a colourful roll of paper that's the width of an iPhone but well over three metres long. When I look closer, I can see it's a printed copy of the Wall Street Journal's mobile website. That's a lot of scrolling to do... and a pretty unfriendly user experience for anyone reading the news online. Why does it work so badly?

This week's podcast starts with Lenovo's purchase of the Motorola Mobility smartphone business. Was it a good deal for everyone?

We also talk about network infrastructure sharing in the UK, mobile malware, 3G coverage, misleading apps, mobile advertising, Samsung's retail plans and global tablet sales.

We start this week's podcast by looking at the new Ofcom rules that should end unexpected mid-contract price rises for UK mobile phone customers.

There's also talk about misleading mobile network advertising, patent agreements, takeover bids, satellite broadband and 4G data usage... plus a curious patent application from Google.

In this week's podcast, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge talk about the new Zapp mobile payment scheme, Google's healthcare plans and an ultra-secure smartphone.

Also on the agenda are HP's new phablets, Jimmy Wales joining a UK MVNO, Apple's in-app purchases and plenty of research about tablets.

This week's podcast starts with talk about money, as Google buys smart thermostat company Nest Labs while O2 UK closes its mobile Wallet product.

We're also looking at the decline of SMS text messaging in the UK, the end of the Cash4phones recycling business, an alleged security breach that wasn't what it seemed, mobile service on the Channel tunnel and the growth of 4G.

Mark Bridge talks to Florent Stroppa, General Manager Europe for mobile value-added service specialist OnMobile.

In today's programme Florent explains what 2014 holds for the mobile industry, what he thinks will happen in the slightly more-distant future - and what lessons we can learn from 2013.