Hot on the heels of Apple's explosive Q1 2010 results come AT&T's Q4 2009 financials, and once again the iPhone helped its exclusive US carrier paint a rosy picture that includes 3.1 million new activations.

AT&T's fourth-quarter integrated-device growth included 3.1 million iPhone activations, the second highest quarterly total to date, with more than a third of the activations for customers who were new to AT&T. The average ARPU for integrated devices on AT&T's network continues to be 1.8 times that of the company's nonintegrated-device base.

ARPU (average revenue per user), as Dieter keeps telling us, is the magic number for AT&T, and despite complaints about service in cities like New York and San Francisco, iPhone users continue to use -- and pay for -- a lot of data.

And with Apple still in their corner, and the iPad plans so far exclusively on AT&T as well, that may not be changing soon...

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Review: You really ought to check out Catalyst Black for iOS
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Review: You really ought to check out Catalyst Black for iOS

Catalyst Black is an online multiplayer game that has teams compete against each other to score points and take down opponents. It has both sci-fi and fantasy elements since players can turn into large beasts to do additional damage.