New iPods -- expected to be announced during an Apple media event tomorrow -- are key to Apple's holiday sales. But key to Apple's (AAPL) stock activity tomorrow: How CEO Steve Jobs -- who's expected to deliver a keynote -- looks on stage.

Last time Jobs took the stage (right), at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in early June, he looked thin -- which set off a string of coverage speculating whether Jobs' cancer had returned. Speculation continued well into late July -- when the Times' Joe Nocera finally reported -- convincingly, after an off-the-record conversation with Apple's chief -- that Jobs "doesn't have a recurrence of cancer."

At any rate, a healthy-looking Jobs should be good news for Apple's stock -- which has suffered, in part, because of concerns around Steve's condition.

"We are confident that Steve Jobs will be presenting and we anticipate his appearance at the event to be viewed as a positive," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note today. "While some investors are concerned that Jobs will not deliver the keynote, we have reason to believe he will. Therefore, we believe his health has improved since the June event, which would be a positive for the stock."

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