There are some interesting partnerships discussed in today’s podcast, including bada & Tizen, Intel & Motorola and LG & Microsoft. Plus there’s the rest of the week’s mobile industry news, from UK 4G coverage to Apple’s riotous iPhone launch in China.

You can listen to this week’s edition of The Fonecast on our website audio player, via iTunes, by subscribing to our RSS feed or by downloading the MP3.

There are some interesting partnerships discussed in today's podcast, including bada & Tizen, Intel & Motorola and LG & Microsoft. Plus there's the rest of the week's industry news, from UK 4G coverage to Apple's riotous iPhone launch in China.

Mark Bridge writes:

So that’s CES week over. This year’s show seemed particularly US-centric, given the amount of 4G LTE mobile technology kicking about. Not that the UK isn’t making its own 4G plans; far from it. But let’s start at the beginning...

It’s reported that Samsung is working on merging its own bada mobile operating system with the Tizen OS.

Samsung announced bada just over two years ago, while Tizen is a newer Linux-based open source project with development led by a technical steering group composed of Intel and Samsung.

Navigation business TomTom has signed a deal with Samsung that’ll see TomTom maps and location content used on the Wave 3 bada-powered smartphone.

The agreement will give Samsung access to TomTom’s global maps and premium location content, including map coverage for over 200 countries.

Mark Bridge writes:

Farewell, ST-Ericsson. It didn’t bode well when CEO Didier Lamouche announced his planned departure a couple of weeks ago – and now both STMicroelectronics and Ericsson have confirmed they’ll be splitting the company between them before closing it down.

Mark Bridge writes:

What’s the secret to starting a successful mobile-related business?

It turns out there’s no magic answer… but there’s plenty of useful advice worth listening to. There are also plenty of opportunities to get funding, whether in the form of a loan, a grant or an investment.

Yuval Ben-Moshe writes:

Freezing Android phones just won't break the ice with forensic investigators.

Leading and available mobile forensics tools already have similar capabilities, enabling law enforcement to effectively obtain admissible evidences from mobile devices.

Mark Bridge writes:

Samsung launched a new flagship Android smartphone last week, eschewing Roman numerals and calling it the Galaxy S4. Well, it was never really going to be the SIV, was it?

Mark Bridge writes:

Apple is rumoured to be planning a wearable mobile device: the iWatch. Whether it’s an iPhone accessory or a stand-alone mobile phone… or a figment of overactive imaginations… remains to be seen, although press reports suggest it could be launched by the end of 2013.

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.