A good indication that, despite complaints on Twitter, we got the smartphones we wanted for Christmas? Just check out all the apps we downloaded to celebrate the birth of Jesus this year. Flurry, a mobile analytics company, estimates that some 242 billion apps for iOS and Android devices were downloaded on December 25, 2011, more than any other day ever.

Charted above are the times at which people across the world downloaded apps on Christmas Day compared to an ordinary day in December (adjusted for everybody's own time zone). Two things are clear: Smartphones and tablets are popular Christmas gifts, with 6.8 million new iOS and Android devices being activated this Christmas (that's 4 million more than the previous record last Christmas); second, compared to other days in December, Christmas Day downloads peaked more quickly, accelerating close to its high of 15 million per hour by noon. That means that kids of all ages start installing apps as almost as soon as their shiny new gadgets were out of the box Christmas morning. This blogger, for the record, may or may not have downloaded a half dozen apps on his new iDevice before Christmas Day breakfast. At this point we'd wish Google and Apple a Merry Christmas, but clearly they've already had one.

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