By sundown a trio of Apple faithful queued on a fog-chilled walkway outside the San Francisco convention building where the annual Macworld Expo keynote speech will take place Tuesday without Jobs for the first time in 12 years.
'If you are a loyal Apple fan, you make the pilgrimage at least once in your life,' said 25-year-old Alex Lee, who travelled from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for Macworld. 'I think of it as a Macintosh Mecca.'
A Macintosh-loving friend, Daniel Bell, came from Canada to join Mr Lee at what some fear may be Macworld's last hoorah.
'Macworld may go out with a bang,' said Nicholas Lensander, a 14-year-old blogger from Southern California who staked out the front spot in the keynote line at 9 o'clock on Monday morning.
'And who knows, Steve Jobs might appear at the end.'
Mr Jobs, 53, in a letter to the 'Apple Community,' said his recent weight loss and decision not to give the keynote presentation on Tuesday morning set off a 'flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed'. -- AFP