Mark Bridge writes:

Today's news summary is a little early because I'm on holiday this afternoon. I'll be leaving Iain and James in charge... and, even though it's traditionally the "silly season", they'll have plenty to talk about in Wednesday's podcast.

A week ago, the big news in our podcast was Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility. This week it was HP's move away from webOS devices. And now we hear that Steve Jobs has stepped down from the CEO role at Apple, although he's remaining with the company as Chairman of the Board.

Research In Motion has announced a new service called BBM Music.

It's a cloud-based service that lets users share their favourite songs with friends via BlackBerry Messenger. The music library already contains millions of songs from leading music companies, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI.

Sony Ericsson has announced a new Android smartphone called 'Live with Walkman'.

The Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman features a dedicated Walkman button that provides instant access to the music player. There's also Facebook integration that allows consumers to 'like' and share tunes, plus there's Sony's Qriocity service offering access to millions of songs and thousands of movies.

The 2011 Mobile Internet Usage Report from CCS Insight has revealed that Facebook Messages, Chat and Photos are some of the most popular mobile services across Europe.

CCS Insight says Facebook is now one of the top three providers for messaging and could soon become a major destination for watching video clips.

New research from Ofcom shows that 27% of adults (and 47% of teenagers) now own a smartphone. Most of these people have acquired their device in the last 12 months.

Ofcom's Communications Market Report also reveals that smartphone users make more calls and send more texts than regular mobile users, with 81% of smartphone users making calls every day compared with 53% of 'regular phone' users.