Smartphone hardware did not take centre stage at the year’s premier mobile industry event in Barcelona, with license-built Nokias generating as much excitement as flagship smartphones from HTC, Sony and Samsung

In VR, AR and IoT, the most impressive signs of progress were under the hood rather than in flashy device announcements – as the actual use cases become more specific, so does hardware and software

Concrete business applications around the personal data generated by connected mobile devices was a major theme, with new types of automation and personalisation in services and media – and a growing market for security

Streaming is now mainstream and we predict 113% growth in expenditure on subscriptions for 2015-18 in the top four markets (US, UK, Germany and France)

Free vs paid-for streaming is the central question for the music ecosystem: free yields fractions of pennies, making subscription the only credible business model

Market leader Spotify is facing competition from tech giants Amazon, Apple and Google, with deep pockets, for whom content is a pawn in a larger game

School’s back and strong computer sales drove Apple’s Q4 FY2007 revenue to $6.22 billion, up 28.5% year-on-year

The distribution side was slightly weak again, but the prospects for the Christmas quarter are much better, with the iPhone exclusivity a big help even if its sales prove to be weak

The Apple iPhone will finally be available in the UK on 9th November, sold exclusively through Apple, O2 and Carphone Warehouse, and costing a hefty £269 when bought with a minimum £35 a month 18 month contract

Apple revealed an updated iPod range to stimulate demand in the run up to the all important Christmas quarter, when iPod revenues typically account for 50% of Apple’s totals

Carphone Warehouse is seeking to position itself as an impartial guide to the broadband products from 6 different brands, although it is not selling the product sets of BT, Sky or Tiscali

Apple has now launched downloads of 28 US TV series in the UK, hoping to drive demand for portable video watching on iPod or for home viewing via Apple TV

Apple reported strong revenue growth for Q3 2006/07, up 23.8% year on year to $5.41 billion, powered mainly by strong computer sales

The distribution business was slightly weak despite good like-for-like store sales, due to the lower quality ‘off-the-page’ newspaper advertisement business being successfully cut back by the mobile operators