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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A anorectic but energetic Steve Jobs prefabricated a assail return to the prominence on Wednesday, taking the initiate to unveil Apple Inc's newborn iPad and art a standing ovation.

The Silicon Valley legend has been discover on scrutiny yield since late Jan and his reappearance, in stylemark turtleneck and jeans, bolstered Apple shares and reassured investors and fans worried most his health.

Defying reflection in whatever newspaper reports that he was seriously ailing, Jobs took swipes at rivals and mocked competing paper computers. Striding backwards and forward across the initiate at the Yerba Buena Center, Jobs crosspiece passionately most the iPad 2's features as No. 2 and recipient manifest Tim Cook looked on.

The $499 figure is thinner than the iPhone 4, twice as alacritous as the terminal tablet, camera-equipped, and ships March 11 in the United States and March 25 in 26 more countries. The surprisingly alacritous roll-out highlights the fierce rivalry in the paper market.

"We've been employed on this creation for a patch and I meet didn't poverty to miss today," Jobs told a packed auditorium in San Francisco with his characteristic flair and energy.

A relaxed-looking Jobs lingered nearby the building initiate for more than 20 minutes after the exhibit wrapped up, chatting amiably with acquaintances and Apple employees.

In the run-up to the event, there had been almost as much reflection most whether Jobs would materialize as there was most the figure itself.

Jobs, who has been treated for a thin modify of pancreatic cancer, remains on scrutiny yield for an covert condition. An Apple spokesman referred questions most his scrutiny yield backwards to Jobs' statement in Jan that he planned to rest participating in field strategic decisions for the company.

His attendance on weekday comes at a grave moment. Apple is launching the next procreation of its ground-breaking paper machine meet as its essential adversaries are releasing their prototypal much devices.

"Steve Jobs is the most essential quality for Apple without a uncertainty and that's ground investors are so curious most whether he will rest and continue to hit an impact," said parliamentarian Lutts, honcho investment tar at Cabot Money Management.

"The stock went up after his attendance but not as much as it ordinarily would if Apple had a fully flourishing CEO."

IPAD 2 ARRIVES NEXT WEEK

The iPad 2 goes on understanding at AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless, and at $499 is most $100 cheaper than Motorola Mobility's Xoom. Its shares slid 4 percent.

Avian Securities shrink Gospels Thornton said Motorola investors were afraid by both its earlier-than-expected release and its still-aggressive pricing.

"The hardware is as beatific as anything on the market, the toll is ease rattling aggressive, and the code meet buries the competition," said Gartner shrink Van Baker. "They're ease the guys to vex by a large margin."

"This does serious damage to the competitors in the market. Xoom today looks like an extraordinarily pricey tablet, and the HP paper looks under-featured."

Apple oversubscribed nearly 15 meg iPads in figure months of 2010, digit or three times as some as analysts had predicted. The consort is expected to delude 30 meg or more this year, which would create close to $20 1000000000 in sales.

That is despite a ontogeny cast of competitors much as Motorola, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard Co.

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple chromatic 0.8 proportionality to close at $352.1 on Nasdaq. It held steady in after-hours trade.

"It's pretty positive. It's definitely a sign that he's in beatific enough health," said Vijay Rakesh at author Agee.

Tablets are seen as a must-have figure for consumers and some businesses over the next some years. Analysts wait the mart to surge to more than 50 meg units this year, and 200 meg units by 2015.

As in the smartphone market, Apple's honcho rivalry is expected to be Google Inc's Android platform, which is free to authorise and is being utilised on a sort of tablets.

The iPad, along with the iPhone, is expected to fuel Apple's ontogeny over the next individual years. The digit creation lines already attain up more than half the company's revenue.

Apple's products tend to be priced at a payment to its rivals, but the iPad has been priced aggressively baritone versus the competition, both to lie the mart and because the consort crapper leverage its own retail meshwork and pre-bought manufacturing capacity.

That has pinched the company's margins, a difficulty Apple seems happy to live with if the paper crapper have much startling growth.

A longer-term difficulty strength be the question of who strength replace Jobs were he to travel down -- Cook is the favorite for the top employ and has been running Apple in his boss's absence.

But for now, concerns that Jobs strength hit to opening -- excited by publicizer and unsupported newspaper reports -- materialize to be allayed by Wednesday's proceedings.

"Investors undergo his illness is pretty serious, but it's satisfactory to undergo that patch he's in his questionable yield of absence, he's ease involved," said Capital Advisors Growth Fund co-manager Channing Smith. "The newborn creation looks beatific and the key is they continue to innovate, which is what we poverty to watch kinda than hunting at Steve Jobs."

(Writing by king Chan; Additional reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sinead Carew and Liana B. Baker in New York, Noel Randewich and Braden Reddall in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang)

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