This might be a real shock to all Apple fans. In a brief statement, Apple announced on Tuesday afternoon that’s its iconic CEO Steve Jobs would not deliver the opening keynote at the next year Macworld Expo.

Instead, the opening keynote would be deliver by Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller. Also, Apple said that is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo.

“Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways”, the company said in the brief statement posted on its website.

Jobs’ keynote at MacWorld is regarded as one the biggest events of the tech industry and he usually has used this event to introduce new products. For example, in January 2007 during his speech at MacWorld Expo and Conference, Jobs introduced Apple’s take on the mobile phones, the iPhone. Last year, the MacBook Air was the highlight of Steve Jobs’s speech.

Macworld Conference and Expo is a trade show dedicated to Apple products, produced by IDG World Expo held annually, usually during the second week of January.
The news that Steve Jobs will take a leave of absence at the next year MaCWorld will surely fuel the rumors about his health problems.
In the fact the health of Apple’s CEO was constantly in the spotlight during the past few months.

In Ocober, Apple’s shares dropped below $100 mark, after a report that Steve Jobs has suffere “a massive heart attack” was published on the citizen journalism section of Time Warner’s CNN. The article was quickly removed from the site and Apple strongly denied the report.

In August, Bloomberg newswire accidentally published Steve Jobs obituary. The 17-page obituary of Jobs was immediately pulled from the news wire, but not before Gawker.com was able to save it and publish it.

In fact, the health status of Apple iconic CEO was the subject of speculations and rumors since his apparition at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this year. However, Apple repeatedly said that his health is good and dismissed any rumors.

In September, during the highly anticipated release of Apple’s new iPod nano music player Steve Jobs addressed the widely debated health issue.

A quotation borrowed from Mark Twain saying "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" was shown on a screen near the stage, proving that Steve Jobs can also be funny when the situation calls for it.