“In a surprising move, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has been given the Mobile Personality of the Year award at this year’s Global Mobile Awards hosted at the MWC (Mobile World Congress) show in Barcelona,” Mark Hattersley reports for Macworld UK.

MacDailyNews Take: Not surprising, delicious with a dollop of irony on top.

Hattersley reports, “The special award was created to mark the 15th anniversary of the Global Mobile Awards and ‘reflects the contributions of individuals, established names, new thinkers, and rising starts, across the global industry and leaders of other industries that have contributed to the growth and convergence of mobile during the last year.’”

“Steve Jobs did not turn up to personally collect the award, and nobody from Apple collected the award on his behalf,” Hattersley reports. “Stephen Fry, the host of the Global Mobile Awards, said he would pass it on… Apple is not attending the Mobile World Congress and Stephen Fry had earlier in the awards ceremony referred to them as ‘the elephant in the room’ and that he admired “Apple’s success insomuch as it inspires others. It causes the whole ecosphere to adapt, adopt, and excel.’”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: The other nominees were Google’s CEO Eric “The Mole” Schmidt, Research In Motion’s half-CEO Mike Lazaridis, and HTC’s CEO Pete Chou.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Chas" for the heads up.]