It has been the talk of the blogosphere for months. Occasional bursts of speculation even sent Apple's shares plunging.
So when Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive and genius-in-residence strolled on to a San Francisco stage yesterday, a sigh of relief went up around Silicon Valley.
Emerging to applause
in front of a giant screen that featured the Apple logo in its centre, Mr Jobs flashed up a message behind him: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
Concern about Mr Jobs' health has been the number one issue surrounding Apple since he missed a conference call with investors earlier this year.
The Apple faithful have been nervously forced to contemplate the prospect of the company without the man who not only founded it, but who returned from exile a decade ago to revitalise it, invent the iPod, craft new super-cool designs and turn it into the most important electronics company of the moment.
Unfortunately, yesterday's appearance is unlikely to dispel all the nerves, since he appeared even thinner than during his last public outing, to launch the iPhone 3G.
His battle with a rare pancreatic cancer is four years behind him, and friends have said the disease has not returned, even though they have conceded he has been ill.
On stage in San Francisco, though, Mr Jobs left it at that one flashed message.
"Enough said," he clipped, before launching into a blizzard of new product announcements, designed to refresh the iPod range in time for Christmas and solve some of the technical problems plaguing the iPhone.
The software update for the iPhone aims to nip in the bud a consumer backlash against the product.
There will be fewer dropped calls and crashes and improved battery life.
While Apple's future is clearly staked on the iPhone, the iPod remains its most significant cash cow.
The company will bring down prices or increase the storage capacity across the range, and unveiled a new version of the iPod Nano.
Waving the taller, sleeker, thinner new Nano, Mr Jobs grinned as he demonstrated one of its coolest features: shaking the device shuffles the songs.
And the company is making much of an updated version of its iPod Touch that it says will be the "funnest iPod ever".
Mr Jobs claimed: "You can make a pretty good argument for saying it is the best portable device for playing games."
- THE INDEPENDENT
