Weeks after he took a leave of absence from the company, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance on stage at Apple's March 2nd event in San Francisco. Greeted with a standing ovation when he took the stage, Jobs revealed that Apple had been working on the next-generation iPad and that he was not going to miss the unveiling. He began by noting that over 100 million books downloaded from the iBookstore and that publishing giant Random House was coming to the store with over 17,000 books and that Apple had over signed over 2,500 publishers.
