Would anyone be surprised to hear that a bunch of new iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day? Probably not, but you might be surprised to hear that the number of devices activated this year was about 2.5 times as many as the previous record-breaking day, Christmas Day 2010. One year ago, 2.8 million new devices were activated and this year saw about 6.8 million new iPhones and Android smartphones switched on for the very first time.

That information came in from Flurry, a mobile device analytics company. Localytics analyzed the numbers and estimated that iOS alone saw 16 million new activations in December, with a huge share of that coming on Christmas Day.

That’s a lot of touchscreen.

What does this mean for new Apple products? Probably not much. Chances are this will only mean business as usual but it doesn’t change the fact that the Apple faithful are salivating over the mythical iPhone 5 and the iPad 3.

While there remains to be any definitive word about the former, it appears the latter is being pushed for a Feb. 24 release. This would coincide with Steve Jobs’ birthday and would be a pretty symbolic homage to the company’s brain trust. A Chinese-language newspaper reported in mid-December that the device appeared to be ready for a release at the end of 2012′s first quarter.

Our advice? Start saving your pennies for an awesome new device, but don’t get your hopes up.

==== About the Author ====

Margot is a guest writer on the subjects of technology, social media and great ways to use Dell coupons for computers when she’s not writing for the Blog Content Guild.