Forget those crackling fireplaces, this year Americans were lit by the soft, blue electric glow of their brand new Android and iOS devices on Christmas Day, as more people spent the holiday activating their gadgets and downloading apps. Nothing like quality time with the ones you love and all your electronics, eh?

CNET cites analytics firm Flurr, which released data that shows device activations skyrocketed from their usual daily average of 4 million to 17.4 million on Christmas Day. That’s a 332% increase — nothing to sneeze at — and more than double the 6.9 million gadgets activated on the same day last year.

Tablets were more popular than phones for the first time as well, with iPads beating out the other brands.

After the new devices surged to life, their proud new owners took the time to download 20 million apps per hour to complete the experience.

So how does the company know all this? Flurry claims that it has analytics software in more than 260,000 apps, and can detect 90% of all new iOS and Android activations.

Somebody is watching you. At least no one can see you kissing your new iPad mini goodnight. Well, we hope not.

‘Twas a holly jolly Christmas for smartphones, tablets, and apps [CNET]

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