Jobs’ Appearance at Let’s Rock Signals a Healthy Apple

Fortune quotes analyst Gene Munster, suggesting his appearance at Let’s Rock signals Steve Jobs must be feeling better:

In a note to clients Monday, Munster doesn’t claim to have any inside information about the health of Apple’s (AAPL) CEO, who had a cancerous tumor removed from his pancreas in 2004 (see “The trouble with Steve Jobs“). At his last public appearance in June (pictured right), Jobs looked surprisingly thin, setting off several rounds of speculation about what might have caused his weight loss (see here).

Rather, Munster’s belief that Jobs’ appearance Tuesday will be a “slight positive” for the stock is based on the assumption that Jobs would not be going on stage if he didn’t feel — and perhaps more important, look — well enough to reassure investors.

“We are confident that Steve Jobs will be presenting and we anticipate his appearance at the event to be viewed as a positive,” Munster wrote under the heading Steve Jobs’ Appearance Will Be Key. Apple has not confirmed that Jobs will speak Tuesday, although the Apple chief typically makes the new product announcements at big media events like Let’s Rock.

Peter S. Magnusson, the Swedish-born entrepreneur, says he’s hoping for a new Apple TV announcement at the event. Why?

Because on Feb. 17, 2009, by Congressional mandate, all full-power analog TV broadcasts in the United States will cease. That means that not long after Christmas, tens of millions of American TVs will go dark unless they are connected to cable, satellite or an analog-to-digital converter box.

MacRumors has the last minute tidbits about Apple’s plans for later today:

Specifically, iPod Nanos are expected to be size-bumped from the current 4GB/8GB sizes up to 8GB/16GB models. As well, Apple will be introducing 9 different colors for each Nano (up from the current 6 colors). The additional colors are expected to be Purple, Yellow and Orange.

Sizes on the 2nd generation iPod Touch, however, will remain unchanged with 8GB, 16GB and 32GB options. Without size bumps, it’s still unclear what other changes are in store for the iPod Touch.

Let’s Rock is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.

RELATED: In a Gilmore Gang talk the Google Chrome team refused to be pinned down on a time frame for delivering the well-received new browser for Mac.