Apple's Jobs makes first appearance since medical leave

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs made his first public appearance on Wednesday since returning to work in June from a nearly six-month medical leave of absence.

The 54-year-old Jobs received a standing ovation from a packed auditorium as he appeared on stage at the start of a 15-minute appearance at an Apple media event here.

"I'm very happy to be here today with you all," said Jobs, who was wearing his trademark long-sleeved black shirt, jeans and sneakers and did not appear noticeably thinner than during his last public appearance in October 2008.

"About five months ago I had a liver transplant," he said. "So I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs."

"I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to be organ donors," said Jobs, the visionary behind the wildly successful Macintosh computer, the iPod and iPhone.

Jobs announced plans for iTunes 9, the latest version of Apple's online music store, and said Apple would be introducing 30,000 ringtones for sale through the iPhone store at 1.29 dollars each.

Jobs said iTunes 9 would include a feature called "Genius" which finds other songs for a user based on their song selections.

"It's like a great DJ or a great radio station," he said.

Jobs also said the redesigned iTunes store would feature iTunes LPs with liner notes, photos and other background information like on record albums of the past.

"Some of us are old enough here that we actually bought LPs," he said. "It was great, you not only got great music, but you got great photography and great liner notes."

He said Apple had sold 30 million iPhones so far.

"During the last year one of the reasons for that has been the remarkable App Store," Jobs said, adding that more than 1.8 billion applications had been downloaded so far.