BEFORE: A robust Steve Jobs displaying what were then Apple's latest products - the iPod Shuffle in 2005, and the ITV (next picture) in 2006. -- PHOTOS: BLOOMBERG

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While the new iPhone 3G was thinner on the edges and thicker in the middle, the buzz at Monday's conference in San Francisco was that the 53-year-old looked leaner than in his previous appearances.

His physique inspired some speculation over whether the chief executive, who battled pancreatic cancer in 2003, had health trouble again.

'Concern over Apple's Steve Jobs's physical appearance,' read a headline on the online Drudge Report, which linked, without further comment, to photographs of Mr Jobs on stage at the Apple conference, according to the Wall Street Journal.

He seemed to have shrunk further in his trademark casual clothing of a black polo T-shirt and blue jeans, which he wears at all Apple events.

Investors and Apple fans scrutinised his appearance almost as closely as they did the new iPhone. One tech analyst said that after seeing the photos, his clients searched the Web for old pictures of the Apple CEO.

Their conclusion: If he were a boxer, he would be fighting in a lower weight class.

Mr Jobs has been a little sick, according to an Apple spokesman. She said he was recovering from a 'common bug that he got two weeks ago', but 'did not want to miss' the developers' conference.

It is a sign of Apple's success and Mr Jobs' importance to the California-based company that observers discuss his health as if he were gunning for the White House.

This is a man who controls every decision Apple makes and has overseen its restoration to the ranks of the world's top technology companies.

Anxieties about his health were fanned earlier this year after Fortune magazine described how Apple's board hid Mr Jobs' cancer diagnosis for months as he fought the disease.

But for now, the official word is that the CEO is like his new iPhone: Thin at the edges, but still robust.

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