Chief operating officer and acting chief executive Tim Cook had nothing to say on the subject of chief executive Steve Jobs’ health in Apple's results conference call this morning, beyond that he is still scheduled to return from his six month leave of absence in June.

An April 14 Wall Street Journal report said that while Mr Cook runs Apple day-to-day, “Mr Jobs has continued to work on the company's most important strategies and products from home.”

Specifically, Mr Jobs has been closely involved in the latest makeover of the iPhone OS, unveiled, last month, and a mysterious project said to revolve around a new touch-screen Apple product that will be bigger than an iPod Touch, but smaller than a netbook.

Certainly, from Mr Cook's comments on Apple's conference call today, it would not be a netbook per se:

“When I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, and just not a consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on. So it's not a space - as it exists today - that we're interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in," said the Apple boss.

“That said, we do look at the space and are interested in how customers respond to it. People who want a small computer than does browsing and email might want to buy an iPod touch or iPhone.

“Then of course if we find a way where we can deliver an innovative product that really makes a contribution, then we'll do that. We have some interesting ideas in this space.”

Shipments of 10-inch touchscreens to Apple have been confirmed by suppliers, pointing to a device that will be perhaps be an iPod Touch/netbook hybrid.

On other fronts, Mr Cook also played his cards close to his chest. As AppStore approaches its billionth download, he maintained its stance of not revealing how many downloads are paid, and how many are free.