Last summer, Samsung announced the high-spec Samsung Z, which it described as “the first commercially available smartphone powered by the Tizen platform”. However, the launch was postponed and the phone’s release apparently cancelled in favour of a focus on lower-spec devices.

Samsung has now announced a new Tizen smartphone: the Samsung Z1.

The dramatic growth in smartphones running the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) platform or other ‘forked’ versions of Android is expected to slow next year, according to a report from ABI Research.

Devices that run forked or AOSP versions of Android don’t have direct access to the Google Play app store, unlike those produced by the Open Handset Alliance.

A new quarterly report from ​ABI Research show that shipments of ‘forked’ Android smartphones - those that use the Android Open Source Project rather than Google’s own version of Android - accounted for 20% of the smartphone market in Q2 2014.

Shipments of AOSP smartphones increased by 20% from the previous quarter, while the total market grew by just 3%.

Although smartphone sales don’t have the dramatic year-on-year growth they once had, ABI Research has published a new report that shows these sales figures are still increasing.

It expects 1.25 billion smartphones to be shipped this year, with smartphone shipments forecast to pass the 2 billion mark in 2018.

Nokia has sold most of its Devices & Services business to Microsoft, as originally announced in September last year. The deal also includes an agreement to license patents to Microsoft.

Although the deal was originally worth €5.44 billion (£4.48 billion), Nokia says it now expects the total transaction price to be slightly higher than this.

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?

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return with their first mobile industry podcast of 2014.

This week they're looking at new Samsung, Sony and ZTE products from CES, they're talking about Android embedded in cars, they're catching up with the latest news from BlackBerry, they're discussing cheque payments by smartphone, they're revealing complaint data from Ofcom and they're investigating quite a few other stories as well.

It's our last podcast of the year, which is the traditional time for us to predict what'll be happening in the mobile phone industry during the next 12 months... from forthcoming consumer technology to deals between network operators.

As well as making our 2014 predictions, we'll also be reviewing those we made last year and discovering how accurate our forecasts for 2013 really were.

This week we're talking about a UK government deal to prevent bill shock, good news for some UK consumers visiting the USA, a court threat to HTC sales, new high-speed satellite broadband, mobile search, mobile shopping and much more.

Join Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge for an informed and entertaining look at all the major mobile industry news stories from the past seven days.

It's been a week of diverse mobile headlines in which Jolla started selling its Sailfish smartphone, mobile shopping broke records and BlackBerry's CEO looked to the future.

We're also talking about smartphones for seniors, battery life, a looming spectrum shortage, phone theft and Sony's Smart Wig. Something for everyone, surely!

In today's programme we're talking to James Atkins, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of smartphone manufacturer Kazam.

The company launched earlier this year and has just announced its first seven Android-based handsets. James explains the story behind Kazam's creation, the company ethos, its product range and its plans for the future.