We give a new proof of a theorem of Bell and Coons [‘Transcendence tests for Mahler functions’, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 145(3) (2017), 1061–1070] on the leading order radial asymptotics of Mahler functions that are the generating functions of regular sequences. Our method allows us to provide a description of the oscillations whose existence was shown by Bell and Coons. This extends very recent results of Poulet and Rivoal [‘Radial behavior of Mahler functions’, Int. J. Number Theory, to appear].

We present a complete characterisation of the radial asymptotics of degree-one Mahler functions as $z$ approaches roots of unity of degree $k^{n}$, where $k$ is the base of the Mahler function, as well as some applications concerning transcendence and algebraic independence. For example, we show that the generating function of the Thue–Morse sequence and any Mahler function (to the same base) which has a nonzero Mahler eigenvalue are algebraically independent over $\mathbb{C}(z)$. Finally, we discuss asymptotic bounds towards generic points on the unit circle.

We study analytic properties of certain infinite products of cyclotomic polynomials that generalise some products introduced by Mahler. We characterise those that have the unit circle as a natural boundary and use associated Dirichlet series to obtain their asymptotic behaviour near roots of unity.