Pocket Picks round-up: January 22nd 2011 - Ovi Music Unlimited, HTC Gratia, Steve Jobs, and a ridiculous number of downloads

Welcome back to another instalment of the Pocket Picks round-up!

In this week’s edition, Nokia fans will be pleased to know that there’s something for them this time around (and then be disappointed, as it’s not exactly positive news), and there’s yet another Android phone from HTC being prepped for the UK.

That makes it the company’s 345,348,203th handset by my reckoning, although I may be exaggerating for comedic effect.

Ovi Music Unlimited shutting down in most territories

It was a nice try, but the Ovi Music Unlimited service (formally known as Comes With Music, to much sniggering) is officially being closed down in every territory bar China, Brazil, Indonesia, India, South Africa and Turkey.

First launched in 2008, the service offered up unlimited music downloads for a set rate - an innovative idea for the time, considering that everyone was still treating the iTunes model as the one to aim for.

Alas, the experiment didn’t succeed, either because of the explosion of streaming music services, or just the fact that consumers preferred the more traditional digital distribution store.

Ovi Music remains unaffected, though, so you can still buy DRM-free tracks for your Nokia handsets through that service.

Steve Jobs takes medical leave

For the second time in two years, Apple’s CEO, co-founder, and turtle-neck jumper lover, Steve Jobs, has decided to take a medical leave of absence from the company.

It follows a similar decision in 2008 that saw the charismatic head take leave to undergo a liver transplant, although it has to be noted that there is no indication this present departure is related to the previous illness.

Tim Cook, Apple’s COO, will take over day-to-day operations, while Jobs will remain around for "major strategic decisions."

App Store rapidly approaching 10 billion downloads

On the bright side for Apple is that its flagship App Store is rapidly approaching the quite staggering landmark of 10 billion downloaded apps.

It comes two-and-a-half years after first launching alongside the iPhone 3G, which is just a few months before Google launched its competing Android Market service, fact fans.

Latest figures put the total number of unique apps on the App Store at around 300,000, which places it firmly in first place when it comes to both downloads and content available when compared to its rivals.

HTC official announce the Gratia for UK

HTC surprised everyone this week by announcing a new Android phone destined for the UK - the HTC Gratia (not Gracia as I desperately want to type).

Oh, who am I kidding? No-one was that surprised to see that the Android 2.2 handset will be released on these shores, especially given how many of HTC’s previous models have appeared on the market.

The Graci...Gratia is aimed firmly at the lower-end of the Android scale, possibly as a spiritual successor to last year’s Wildfire, with a 600Mhz CPU and a slightly higher screen resolution of 320×480.