Steve Jobs wins standing ovation at Apple powwow

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple CEO Steve Jobs made his second major public appearance since he went on medical leave in January. He received a standing ovation as he appeared at a conference Monday, where he was expected to announce a new service called iCloud.

James Brown's "I Feel Good" played over the loudspeakers just before he walked on stage, looking thin, in his signature outfit of mock turtleneck and blue jeans.

Jobs left many of the specific announcements to top executives. In the first hour, he appeared on stage for only a few minutes. Typically, he's on stage longer at major public launches.

One audience member shouted out, "We love you."

Before announcing iCloud, Jobs unveiled a new operating system for Mac computers called Lion. With it, Apple Inc. is expanding the number of "gestures" users can perform on a MacBook trackpad, for instance to jump from application to application.

In another nod to bringing the computer closer to the iPhone and iPad, Apple is also adapting more applications to run in full-screen mode rather than in smaller windows.

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Jobs made a public appearance in March to announce a new iPad.

Apple also unveiled updates to its software for iPhones and iPads. It will present notifications of new emails, missed calls and other events in a more intelligent fashion, reminiscent of the way Google Inc.'s Android smartphone software already does. The software will present all pending notifications in a list, accessible with the swipe of a finger.

The new mobile software, iOS 5, will have a newsstand for newspapers and magazines that you subscribe to on iPad. New issues are automatically downloaded and placed there.

Apple also announced greater integration with Twitter, so that you can tweet photos, for instance, directly from a photo app.

Meanwhile, Apple presented a bullish picture of its business, announcing a list of statistics pointing to strong customer demand for its products and services. Among the highlights:

• More than 54 million active Mac users around the world and growing
• Over million iOS devices sold to date
• More than 14 billion apps downloaded from the App Store
• 90,000 apps specifically for the iPad

ICloud could give users a wide array of music for their iPhones, iPads and Wi-Fi-capable iPods, without having to connect them to their home PCs to transfer songs. Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have launched similar services.