Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, today publicly acknowledged for the first time that he has had a liver transplant – and the donor was a man in his mid-20s who died in a car crash.
Speaking at the launch of a new range of iPods – his first media appearance since January – Jobs said: "I am very happy to be here today with you all." He was given a standing ovation as he arrived on stage for the launch event at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, San Francisco.
On stage, he announced a new iPod nano that is able to record video and upload it directly to YouTube, competing with the Flip camera by network gear company Cisco. There was also a new feature for Apple's music download service iTunes that is called iTunes LP. It adds videos, liner notes, lyrics and other extras to buyers of albums rather than single tracks.
The software also lets listeners post details about tracks they are listening to on to Facebook and Twitter.
Jobs, who had treatment for a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004, had made a series of opaque announcements in January about his health after media organisations and analysts expressed concern about his increasingly gaunt appearance during public speeches last year.
Initially, Apple had said Jobs had "a common bug" but, by January, he was saying it was due to a "hormonal imbalance" – but then a few days later said the problem were "more complex" than he had thought. He then said he would take a six-month leave of absence.
It later transpired – through documents that were apparently leaked to the press with Jobs's approval – that he had a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee.
Tonight Jobs cleared up the matter once and for all. He said: "As some of you may know, about five months ago I had a liver transplant – so I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and donated his organs. I wouldn't be here without such generosity. So I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to become organ donors."
He added: "I'd like to take a moment to thank everybody in the Apple community." He said that Tim Cook, the company's chief operating officer who took over the daily running of the company while Jobs was on sick leave earlier this year, and other Apple executives ran the company well in his absence.
"I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple and I'm loving every day of it," Jobs announced, and was greeted with warm applause from many of the invited audience.
Speaking of the new video-enabled iPod, Jobs said video was a market that Apple was interested in getting into, while the new iTunes feature looked like an attempt to please record labels – which have seen their revenues tumble with the advent of individual track downloads.
Jobs also extolled the company's success with its two newest products, the iPhone and touchscreen iPod Touch, which have sold 30m and 20m worldwide since their launch in summer and autumn 2007.
Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing, said that the iPod Touch is now "the fastest-selling model" because it could play games – downloaded from Apple's "app store" – and get email and surf the web on a wireless network.
