BT thinks it’s good to talk, but iPhone owners think it’s better to surf the web, send emails and listen to music. A report has found that owners of the coveted handset spend far less time chatting on it than users other handsets do on their devices.

According to analyst iSuppli, of all the time non-iPhone users spend with their phones, over 70 per cent is taken up by voice communications. But when the analyst questioned US iPhone owners, it found they typically only spend 46.5 per cent of their ‘phone time’ actually making calls.

But iPhone adopters are heavy mobile internet users, with 12.1 per cent of their handset time spent browsing the web. Those without the Apple talker typically surf the web 2.4 per cent of the time.

Email’s also popular with iPhone owners, with most spending 10.4 per cent of their time with the gadget checking or sending virtual letters. Non-iPhone addicts only spend 2.8 per cent of their handset time on emails.

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Since Apple’s device is also an integrated iPod, it’s not surprising that listening to music takes up 11.9 per cent of most users’ time. But music only accounts for 2.5 per cent of the time non-iPhone owners spend with their phones.

Greg Sheppard, chief development officer at iSuppli, said that the figures prove “Apple has succeeded in producing a true convergence product that consumers like to use for multiple purposes”.

iPhone owners are worse off each month though, because a separate study by Rubicon has found that US users’ mobile phone bills have increased by an average of 24 per cent – or $228 (£114/€140) a year.