Over 700,000 Android devices activated daily, Google boasts

Back in June, Google's senior vice president of mobile Andy Rubin tweeted that more than 500,000 Android devices were being activated every day. Now the Android founder's upped it to a phenomenal 700,000. That's every single day.

And if you're in any doubt as to what 'activated' actually refers to, he went on to clarify that too. A bit like flexing his bicep while pointing to his trophy cabinet, granted, but nice of him nonetheless.

"There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day," he posted on Google+. "...and for those wondering," he wrote in a follow-up three minutes later, "we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and 'activations' means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service." So he's actually underestimating a little.

Not too shabby, even if the iPhone does count for a third of all smart phone sales, according to a recent report. In the last month, nearly a quarter of all smart phones sold were the iPhone 4S. But if you add up every Android phone on sale, you'll have a number almost double that of iPhone sales. At the launch of Google Music last month, Google also announced it'd sold over 200 million Android devices to date.

Google is currently busy pushing out the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, though some handsets will miss out. The search giant started it for the Nexus S, but has since delayed it. If you own a Nexus S and don't want to hang around, you can use our backdoor trick and get your hands on ICS now. Just don't tell anyone we told you how.

So who's really winning the smart phone war, Apple or Google? And which side are you on? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. But please, keep it festive.