Topping this year’s smorgasbord of gifts, it seems, was the smartphone. More devices flooded into eager customers’ hands than in any previous holiday season.

Smartphone activations hit record highs this Christmas, with combined Android and iOS activations topping the 6.8 million mark on Dec. 25 alone, according to mobile research firm Flurry Analytics. That’s an uptick of more than four times the average number of activations during the three weeks that preceded the holiday, and a 140 percent increase from last year’s Christmas Day activations.

And with such rapid hardware adoption, of course, comes a voracious appetite for apps. Google surpassed the 10 billion Android Market download mark earlier this month. An impressive milestone, though Apple did hit 15 billion downloads nearly six months ago.

App download rates will only skyrocket, if Christmas day numbers are any indicator. Flurry estimates more than 175 million Android and iOS apps were downloaded during the period from 11 am to 11 pm on Christmas day, with more than a quarter of a billion apps downloaded over the entire 24-hour period. That’s nearly twice the amount of apps downloaded on a single day than ever before.

Photo courtesy of Flurry 

It’s been a gadget-friendly holiday season overall, according to a number of recently released stats. One of every four smartphones sold in the U.K. this Christmas was an iPhone 4S, as the Financial Times previously reported. And earlier this week, Amazon claimed its Kindle tablets and e-readers were flying off of the virtual shelves, with online orders of Kindle devices reaching more than 1 million a week throughout the month of December. This includes the Fire, the Touch and the regular Kindle; Amazon didn’t break down percentages.

While these figures are unprecedented, they come as little surprise considering the rise in smart device adoption over the past two years. In the U.S. alone, over 60 percent of those ages 18 to 24 now own a smartphone, according to data from research firm Nielsen. For 25- to 34-year-olds, smartphone ownership is over 50 percent.

Smartphone adoption will inevitably increase, as prices drop, and manufacturers work harder to penetrate the market. Microsoft, for example, will dive headfirst into the new year, with a huge push behind its Windows Phone platform. That means stronger partnerships with hardware manufacturers (like Nokia, for one), developer recruitment, and a re-dedication to bolstering the Windows Phone app ecosystem.

What’s more, Google’s latest iteration of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich), one of the company’s most anticipated software releases, was made available to the masses just before Christmas. And, of course, Apple’s iPhone 4S sales aren’t showing signs of stopping.

So if you didn’t find a smartphone under the tree this Christmas, fret not: There’s always next year.

The request, as reported by Bloomberg on Friday, appears to be part of the strategic tit-for-tat between AT&T and the regulators who are determined to stop the merger.

The new move by the Justice Department, which filed its antitrust suit in August, comes on the heels of the phone giant’s decision to yank its approval application from the FCC. AT&T had decided to withdraw the approval application before the broadcast regulator, which had publicly voiced disapproval, could formally say no.

An attorney for the Justice Department argued that the case should be halted because it’s a waste of taxpayer resources to continue litigating a case that is effectively moot. The government’s position is based on the fact that AT&T can’t go forward without FCC approval and, now that the approval application is withdrawn, it is unlikely that the deal can close by a contractual deadline in September. AT&T replied that it wants its day in court so that it can obtain a legal green-light that it can take back to the FCC.

The parties will appear in court on December 15 to make further arguments about whether the government can postpone or withdraw the suit.

If the Justice Department succeeds in withdrawing the suit, it will have effectively outflanked the phone companies by forcing the clock on the deal to run out.

If the deal fails, AT&T will be obliged to pay T-Mobile a $4 billion break-up fee. The company’s CEO recently said the fee wouldn’t hurt that much because most of it could used as a tax deduction.

The Federal Communications Commission took a step toward opposing the deal yesterday, as Chairman Julius Genachowski asked commissioners to send the proposal to an agency judge for a hearing. Agency staff had found the proposed merger would significantly diminish competition and lead to job losses, said an official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Questioning 2,300 mobile workers at more than 1,100 enterprises worldwide, the iPass survey found that Apple’s iPhone is now the leader among such users, with 45 percent of respondents saying they use one, compared to 32.2 percent who use a BlackBerry. A year ago, BlackBerry was marginally ahead of the iPhone, with 34.5 percent of the share to the iPhone’s 31.1 percent.

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GoodMobilePhones.co.uk surveyed 1,937 mobile users over 18 and found that 31% of respondents have damaged their mobiles with water or another liquid in the past. This is probably also true in other parts of Europe and American continent.

The number one destination for mobile damage is the toilet, claiming 47% of damage incidents. Spilling drinks on mobiles or dropping mobiles into drinks was the second most popular cause of damage, claiming 21% of cases. Filling spots three through five are dropping phones in a bath or shower (12%), dropping in a kitchen sink (7%) and putting through the washing machine in a pocket (3%).

Men are three times more likely to be victims than women, with 73% and 27% respectively reporting to have damaged their devices.

Have you ever damaged your mobile? What was the cause?

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“A small number of customers have reported lower-than-expected battery life on iOS 5 devices,” Apple spokesman said. “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

Great battery life had long been a strong point of the iPhones, but many consumers found their new iPhone 4s draining battery life fast. Many have complained online about losing as much as 15% of the battery life in hour, even when the phone is not being used. A customer support post on Apple’s Web site has had more than 2,800 replies and has seen more than 170,000 times.

The Guardian reported last week that Apple engineers have contacted some iPhone 4s consumers, asking them to place a file on the phone that would track the phone’s performance and help Apple diagnose the problem. It could be as simple as a software issue. The battery in the iPhone 4s actually has a higher capacity than the iPhone 4, according to some sources. But with the introduction of iOS 5, a faster processor, and a system-wide notification center, it’s certainly possible that a software process is responsible for bringing the iPhone 4s to its knees faster.

A popular fix floating around the Web has worked for me. Users can turn off the phone’s attempts to constantly make sure it’s in the current time zone, which can save on battery life. That might be a pain for the few users who often cross time zones. But for most people it shouldn’t be an issue.

Hopefully a bigger software fix will come from Apple soon.

The research firm attributed Android’s gain in part to recent shipment numbers.

For the second quarter, growth in iPhone shipments fell to 9 percent from 15 percent in the first quarter, while Android’s shipment growth rose to 36 percent from 20 percent. Android’s total install base now outweighs that of iOS by a factor of 2.4 to 1, ABI said, a ratio that will reach 3 to 1 by 2016.

But Android’s open-source strategy is also driving app downloads, according to ABI.

“Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores,” ABI research associate Lim Shiyang said in a statement. “These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market.”

But though Android may be tops in total downloads, Apple still holds the lead in the number of downloads per user.

“Despite leading in total mobile application downloads, Android’s app downloads per user still lag behind Apple’s by 2-to-1,” Dan Shey, ABI’s practice director for mobile services, said in a statement. “Apple’s superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience.”

Overall, the number of mobile app downloads across the world is expected to hit 29 billion in 2011, up from only 9 billion last year. That’s due in large part to the surge in demand for smartphones, which are likely to see their customer base grow by 46 percent this year, added ABI.

Lurie has been responsible for creating new revenue opportunities by connecting everything from medicine bottles to dog collars at AT&T. He believes the industry is just starting to realize this opportunity.

“Everything that has a current running through it will be connected,” Lurie said. “They need to be smarter.”

A study conducted by Machina Research and funded by the GSM Association found that the market for connected devices could grow to $1.8 trillion by 2020, with $1.2 trillion as an opportunity that can be addressed by the wireless industry. There are currently 9 billion connected devices this year, a figure that could grow to 24.45 billion by 2020.

Lurie and several other wireless industry executives gathered today to talk about the revenue opportunity that comes from connecting multiple electronic devices. The conference comes a day ahead of the CTIA Enterprise & Applications, which starts tomorrow.

Consumers are driving data consumption, as well as the popularity of data-heavy devices, said Bill Davidson, head of marketing and investor relations for Qualcomm. That runs counter to the industry’s prior assumption that business data needs would have driven adoption.

As a result, Davidson said he sees the consumer as a catalyst for industries such as health care, automotive, and utilities to adopt newer data devices.

Lurie said that as the industry moves to connect different devices in the home, or the car or in the office, it needs to keep things simple. He said consumers tend to get nervous about having multiple connected devices–which potentially could lead to multiple bills.

“We’ve got to make it so it’s more simplistic for people to understand,” Lurie said. “That’s up to us.”

The lack of education is the biggest obstacle to customer adoption, he said. Devices such as the Apple iPad and Amazon Kindle have been successful because the cellular connection portion of the device is easy to understand, he added.

Likewise, the GSM said that maintaining common technology standards and consistent practices is key to driving adoption of connected devices. Lurie, for his part, is upbeat.

“We’re just getting started on the growth curve,” Lurie said.