The Cupertino, Calif., company has ordered key components such as display panels and chips for a new iPad it is aiming to launch in early 2012, said the people.

The next generation iPad is expected to feature a high resolution display – 2048 by 1536 compared with 1024 by 768 in the iPad 2 – and Apple’s suppliers have already shipped small quantities of components for the sampling of the iPad 3. Suppliers said Apple has placed orders for a 9.7-inch screen device.

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But since Steve Jobs has already declared that his new building will be “like a spaceship,” now might be a good time to see how the proposed, but presumably real, building stacks up to some of Hollywood’s actual, but fictional, spaceships. Enjoy:

According to several sources close to the situation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs–who is on a health-related leave from the company–is definitely considering an appearance at its big iPad 2 event tomorrow.

But the possibility–which would be a big sensation at the San Francisco gathering and has been subject to great speculation–is also just as definitely not confirmed as yet, stressed sources.

If he did appear, sources said, Jobs would make at least a brief appearance on stage along with other top company execs in showing off Apple’s latest version of it hugely popular tablet.

The new device reportedly has a sleeker look, as well as a camera and other improvements, changes that tech’s top showman would certainly love to tout and that his legions of fans would like to see him introduce.

But what BoomTown would like to see would be more of a focus on the iPad 2 itself, rather than armchair diagnoses of Jobs’s fitness based on any appearance he might make.

That’s no small thing, given the appalling series of photos and video that have surfaced recently, which show the Silicon Valley icon from the worst possible angle and looking quite gaunt.

As I have written before, and as you can see from the photo above taken at last year’s D: All Things Digital conference interview, it is clear Jobs has suffered due to his bout with a form of pancreatic cancer.

Due to nutritional issues, his weight has suffered, one of the key reasons Jobs seems to have taken this latest leave.

That said, in recent weeks, he has made all kinds of public appearances both at Apple’s Cupertino campus and in Silicon Valley restaurants, including a high-profile dinner with President Barack Obama. Jobs sat immediately to the left of the president.

If he decides to make another outing tomorrow, it is certainly with the knowledge that everyone will be trying to figure out his health from a stage appearance.

That’s a risk for Jobs, of course, who relishes in introducing Apple products in presentations that typically garner well-deserved accolades.

Given how innovative most of those products are, what would be a welcome change in the coverage of Jobs’s personal struggles would be to show a level of respect to him by paying more attention to what bells and whistles the iPad 2 has rather than to how his jeans are fitting.

There is no question, with its latest iteration, Apple is making sure consumers realize that it is coming out with a second, flashier version, even before other manufacturers–mostly using the new Honeycomb version of Google’s Android mobile operating system–are still scrambling to get their initial competing devices to market.

That’s the truly dramatic story to watch here, rather than needlessly rubbernecking about the struggles of one man–albeit, a very significant man–to regain his health.

“Each new product category typically causes a significant shift in market shares,” said Canalys senior analyst Daryl Chiam. “Apple is benefiting from pads, just as Acer, Samsung and Asus previously did with netbooks. The PC industry has always evolved this way, starting when Toshiba and Compaq rode high on the original notebook wave.”

And to those who contend that the iPad and similar devices shouldn’t be tallied in the same category as laptops and desktops?
“Any argument that a pad is not a PC is simply out of sync,” said Chiam.

[Image credit: Gizmodo commenter Ahubbuch]

There will be those who are inclined to try to equate Jobs’s health issues with all kinds of near-term product implications, but such speculation is likely off base. While Jobs’s health may have been a factor in the timing of a couple of announcements, don’t expect his medical issues to substantially impact things like the next iPhone or iPad.

The company overall tends to operate on long lead times, so much of this year’s product plans are likely in the works and probably won’t be deeply affected. Jobs practically said as much in his brief statement.

Also, Jobs leaves Apple in extremely capable hands. Tim Cook has ably led Apple during Jobs’s prior medical leaves, and there is every reason to believe that this time will be no different.

Longer-term, though, is another question. Here is where it is hard to overstate the importance of Steve Jobs at the helm.

While Apple has a company full of talented workers, Jobs tends to be involved in major (and plenty of not-so-major) decisions in almost every area. He is a well-known perfectionist with a strong, sometimes maddening focus on having products done just so.

Those who understand Apple know that Jobs is not just a chief executive–he is also the de facto head of every department. If there is a tough call to be made about a product or a decision on the next marketing pitch, Jobs is the ultimate authority. He’s known to weigh in on all manner of more minor issues too. This attention to making every detail just so can make Jobs a tough guy to deal with, but is also key to a good part of the company’s success.

And even in the short term–although the same products are likely to come from Cupertino, whether Steve Jobs is there to introduce them or not–no one can sell like Steve. There’s a reason that satellite trucks line up for blocks anytime he has something to say.

Update, 1:35 p.m.: Just got done going on MSNBC talking about the situation (video posted below).

Ina Fried talks to MSNBC Dayside about Steve Jobs health
Uploaded by BeyondPixBroadcast. – Videos of the latest science discoveries and tech.

PREVIOUSLY

• Steve Jobs Asked for Privacy–and He Deserves It This Time
• Apple Shares Down Nearly 8 Percent in Frankfurt on News of Jobs’s Medical Leave
• Citing Health, Steve Jobs Steps Away From Apple, Again
• Apple Opposes Proposal on CEO Succession Planning
• Deutsche Bank Joins the Running of the Apple Bulls
• Jobs: “I’m Vertical, Back at Apple and Loving Every Day of It”
• Apple Investors Are Wusses
• When Steve Jobs Said “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish,” He Did Not Mean This Foolish
• AAPL Sauce
• Apple’s Steve Jobs: “I Have Decided to Take a Medical Leave of Absence”
• The Entire Letter: Steve Jobs Explains His Health Problem: “Hormone Imbalance”–Predicts Recovery by Spring and Will Stay On as CEO
• Ain’t Nobody’s Business If Jobs Is or Isn’t

Or, rather, how has it been responding? Because it’s clear the company has been preparing for this moment for some time. Last year, it accelerated upgrade eligibility for iPhone customers, making it easier for them to get the iPhone 4 when Apple released it. And it locked them all into two-year contracts in the process. And then, last week, it drastically reduced the price of the iPhone 3GS, halving it to $49 from $99.

Presumably, AT&T could follow this with additional pricing promotions that could further limit iPhone subscriber defections to Verizon, though at this point one could argue that it’s as well prepared for its loss of iPhone exclusivity as it will ever be.

Why? Two big reasons:

1. According to Piper Jaffray analyst Christopher Larsen, nearly 80 percent of AT&T iPhone users are currently on family or corporate plans, which makes switching to a new carrier a difficult proposition.
2. Approximately 75 percent of them still have at least a year left on their contracts.

And there’s a third wild-card reason as well: How Verizon’s network fares after a big influx of data-heavy iPhone subscribers. That’s tough to predict, but two analysts I’ve spoken with said they expect Verizon to suffer some network growing pains, though not as bad as the ones suffered by AT&T. Ultimately, Verizon is starting off with a better network, and CDMA is said to be a more spectrally efficient standard than UMTS.

So will there be some AT&T subscribers who switch to Verizon when it begins selling the iPhone? Certainly. But they may not be nearly as large in number as you might think.

“AT&T has done everything it can,” Needham and Co. analyst Charlie Wolf told me this morning. “The company locked in a lot of iPhone owners by waiving early termination fees last summer. It’s moved aggressively to add a bunch of BlackBerrys and Android phones. And it should be remembered that AT&T will continue to sell the iPhone. So I doubt that the loss of subscribers to Verizon will be that large. But it could be material as it pertains to the bragging rights between AT&T and Verizon. “

PREVIOUSLY:

• Why Verizon’s iPhone Won’t Be So Bad for RIM
• How Might the Verizon iPhone Differ From the iPhone 4 (Besides Being Able to Make Calls)?
• Tired: Speculating About Verizon iPhone. Wired: Speculating About Verizon iPhone Sales.
• Verizon iPhone to Debut With Unlimited Data Plan
• Apple CEO Likely to Appear at Verizon iPhone Event
• Verizon Event Set for Tuesday–iPhone Time

But only because those who speculated about the existence of a Verizon iPhone have been struck by a new monomania: Speculating about first-year Verizon iPhone sales numbers.

Indeed, the sales estimates are already rolling out, with the consensus so far hovering between nine million and 12 milion.

“Some think 10 million is possible in the calendar year,” Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair told me. “And I think it’s a reasonable assumption–not just because of what we’ve seen on AT&T but because you have three years of pent-up demand from users who are loyal to the Verizon network because of its coverage and reliability.”

Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall agrees, though he’s betting on sales hitting the top end of the range I mentioned.

“The iPhone on Verizon will sell 12 million units in calendar 2011 assuming there’s a ramp-up similar to the one AT&T experienced in 2007-2008 (i.e., 5 percent penetration of the postpaid subscriber base within five quarters of launch),” he told me, adding that AT&T will see a material decline in its iPhone sales as a result.

Taking a more conservative view of the iPhone’s prospects on Verizon is Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who expects Verizon to activate roughly 25 million smartphones in calendar 2011, of which nine million will be iPhones.

Barclays Capital analyst James Ratcliffe too is betting on that nine-million figure, and of those he expects approximately 500,000 to one million to be purchased by AT&T switchers. Said Ratcliffe, “We don’t believe that the addition of a Verizon iPhone will be a seismic event in the wireless competitive environment, although we do expect it to result in a modest spike in AT&T churn, as customers who love their iPhones but have become unhappy with AT&T’s network take advantage of the alternative.”

PREVIOUSLY:

• Verizon iPhone to Debut With Unlimited Data Plan
• Apple CEO Likely to Appear at Verizon iPhone Event
• Verizon Event Set for Tuesday–iPhone Time

Here’s one way: By offering it with a wireless service plan free of the data caps used by AT&T.

Sources close to Verizon tell me the carrier will offer the iPhone with an unlimited data plan (presumably the same $30 unlimited plan it offers for other smartphones)–though they wouldn’t say for how long. That should distinguish it a bit more from the iPhone on AT&T, which requires a capped plan for data service.

Not that such differences worry AT&T any. “We think customers will prefer AT&T’s faster speeds and better functionality over a CDMA network device,” a spokesperson told me. And he has a point. AT&T’s UMTS network allows the use of data and voice simultaneously. Verizon’s CMDA network doesn’t–at least not yet. So, initially, Verizon iPhone users won’t be able to use the Web or check email while on a call–something AT&T iPhone users have long been able to do.

All Things D reported Friday that the special event Verizon is holding in New York Tuesday will be the carrier’s long-rumored iPhone announcement.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Apple CEO Likely to Appear at Verizon iPhone Event
• Verizon Event Set for Tuesday–iPhone Time

Verizon Wireless’s Tuesday iPhone announcement will be headlined by President and COO Lowell McAdam, but there will likely be a special guest as well.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

While the appearance isn’t 100 percent assured, sources in a position to know tell me that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Jobs will likely join McAdam onstage in New York when he announces the addition of the iPhone to its handset lineup.

All Things Digital reported earlier today that the special event Verizon is holding in New York Tuesday will be the carrier’s long-rumored iPhone announcement.

Update: Apple CEO Likely to Appear at Verizon iPhone Event

And there it is: Verizon will hold a special event at New York City’s Lincoln Center (Frederick P. Rose Hall) on Jan. 11–next Tuesday. No details on its focus, but sources close to the company tell me this will indeed prove to be the long-rumored Verizon iPhone announcement. Question now is will Apple CEO Steve Jobs join Verizon President and COO Lowell McAdam onstage to make it. Remember, while there’s an enormous amount of interest in the Verizon iPhone, this really isn’t much more than a carrier announcement — for last year’s iPhone. If it were more (e.g., a hardware announcement), you can bet the event would be in Cupertino or San Francisco.

Below, the event invite, which I’m posting here despite Verizon’s mandate not to. Just hope it doesn’t result in a personalized data cap.

Palm: Stay the cool kid at Hewlett-Packard, so it’ll keep giving us lots of toys and not merge the smartphone acquisition into the PC unit. Release that tablet we’ve been working on and get our phones out of the clearance section of the stores. Remember to include “and printers” on all our slides when asking for more money.

Microsoft: We were going to copy and paste from last year’s resolutions, but it turns out we can’t copy and paste yet. So, that’s resolution No. 1. But since we’re going to solve that in January, we’ll move on to some other ambitions. Let’s see, open up to more developers, convince developers we’re worth their time, add features, support more networks.

Hmm. Last year’s “Try not to suck so much” is starting to seem easy by comparison.

Research in Motion: Learn some new ways of saying “Everything is great,” so it doesn’t get too repetitive in public speeches. Meanwhile, keep shaking things up behind the scenes. Buy a few more companies. Get some apps for that PlayBook. Find some more really big countries that the other people are ignoring and sell them a boatload of BlackBerrys.

Samsung: Keep going with this whole Galaxy thing–it worked to the tune of about 10 million phones this year. Try to convince Google phone king Andy Rubin to get a tattoo that reads “Galaxy S smartphone.” Remind the carriers that they really did agree to market all our phones that way.

HTC: Good thing we went Android a couple years back, but now we’re kind of glad we didn’t give up on Microsoft. Now, we have to figure out how to convince them to let us customize Windows Phone 7.

Motorola: Keep telling Verizon and Google that they’ve hurt our feelings and see what other perks we can get via guilt. Hey, it worked well with that tablet, didn’t it?

Apple: We are already perfect, so where do you go from there? Follow a magical 2010 with an even more magical 2011. How’s that?

What else? Let’s see. Okay, here’s one: Keep trashing smaller tablets until the day we come out with one.

Google: Release six or seven more versions of Android. Rename “Nexus Tablet You Should Have Made” to something less insulting to the hardware makers. Travel to foreign countries and discover more desserts, because we’re running out of code names for the next version of the tasty mobile operating system.

Nokia: Ship something to the U.S. so they’ll stop making fun of us and realize that we actually do make smartphones. Speaking of shipping, we really should ship some of these products we’ve been talking about for years. Most people are starting to think “Meego” is just a code word we use when we don’t know what to say.

Verizon: Stay on Steve Jobs’s good side. Print iPhone posters on the back of all those Droid billboards from last year. Release a whole bunch of LTE phones, so that the iPhone shelf isn’t lonely in the stores.

AT&T: Work on next-generation networks using that spectrum we picked up from Qualcomm. Talk about how we really love the other non-iPhone smartphones and actually mean it this year, because we have to.

T-Mobile: Keep talking about how we can just keep making the current network faster, while trying to convince the feds to let us have some more spectrum. Make more of those commercials making fun of AT&T. They are funny and it’s so much easier than having to deal with Catherine Zeta-Jones. And lots of Android, along with some tablets too.

Sprint: Find a way to remind people that, while we still don’t have an iPhone, we do have a next-generation network up and running, complete with phones and data devices. Add a 4G tablet or two to the mix. (Hey, Jon Rubinstein, is that PalmPad ready yet?)

Apple.

About a five-minute drive from Apple headquarters, the 98-acre parcel of land is adjacent to 50 acres Apple acquired back in 2006 and will be used to house a workforce that’s expanding nearly as quickly as the market for iOS devices.

“We now occupy 57 buildings in Cupertino and our campus is bursting at the seams,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told the Mercury News, which first reported the story. “These offices will give us more space for our employees as we continue to grow.”

No word on HP’s asking price for the parcel, but real estate experts estimate that it may have been $300 million or more.

According to a prehearing examination of the patents at issue in the case by the staff of the U.S. International Trade Commission, Apple hasn’t provided enough evidence to establish a violation of its rights. The ITC’s early read on 13 patents Cupertino has accused Nokia of violating is that some were not violated at all and some aspects of others are invalid.

Now this doesn’t mean that Apple is destined to lose this particular battle; ITC Judge Charles Bullock isn’t obligated to follow his staff’s recommendation. But it is something of a setback for Apple, which has asked the Commission to block the import of Nokia phones into the States.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company will hold an event dubbed “Back to the Mac,” a reference to its line of laptop and desktop computers. The event, which comes just two days after Apple’s planned fourth-quarter earnings release, will feature new bells and whistles in the software that powers Macs and possibly new computer models.

The event comes amid Apple’s rapid transformation. Once known for computers popular with students and graphic designers, the company morphed into a mobile-device giant as its iPod, iPhone and iPad products took off with consumers. Now, those devices are proving popular with business executives, driving Apple to aggressively move into the corporate market.

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The Street won’t like guidance, though: Apple is predicting Q1 EPS of $4.80, below the $5.04 analysts were looking for. They will also sputter a bit on this number: Apple sold 4.19 million iPads, and the consensus was 4.7 million.

And then on the other hand, Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones last quarter, well above both the official 11 million consensus and the 13 million “what we’re really looking for” number.

Ominous/hopeful Steve Jobs quote: “We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

UPDATE: Live earnings call coverage here.

Other numbers you care about:

Macs sold: 3.89 million.

iPods sold: 9.05 million.

Press release text:

Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results
Record Mac, iPhone and iPad Sales
Highest Revenue and Earnings Ever

CUPERTINO, California—October 18, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $12.21 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.53 billion, or $2.77 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.9 percent compared to 41.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 57 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter.
“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”
“We’re thrilled with the performance and strength of our business, generating almost $5.7 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.80.”

Apple makes headlines.

That’s the conclusion of a yearlong study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that Cupertino generates a disproportionately large amount of news coverage compared with other tech companies–even titans like Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Of the 437 tech stories Pew analyzed, 15.1 percent were primarily about Apple (AAPL)–more than Google (11 percent), Twitter (7 percent), Facebook (5 percent) and Microsoft (3 percent; “Microsoft has, at least for now, fallen off the mainstream media’s radar,” says Pew).

Which, if you follow tech news at all, is hardly a surprise. As former Apple CEO Gil Amelio explaind in his 1998 memoir, “On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple,” people obviously like reading about the company:

I could well understand an extensive interest about Apple in the Bay Area and the trade press covering high tech. But why this excessive level of coverage in other locations? So, I posed the question to a New York Times staffer: “You’re a New York newspaper and we’re a California company, why do you include so much coverage of Apple?”

“Because we sell more papers.”

I asked him to be more specific.

He said, “I can give you the exact statistics. When we run a strong story on Apple, we sell three percent more papers. So, we run stories on Apple. That’s the bottom line.”

Apple (AAPL) has held an end-of-summer event each year since 2005, traditionally focused on the iPod, music and other entertainment-related developments, and it looks like that will be the case again. That still leaves plenty of room for speculation about possibilities, such as a streaming music service, the coming iTV device or a spruced-up iPod touch. Based on Yoko Ono’s recent comments, the traditional Beatles-to-iTunes chatter is likely to be muted this year.

As always, we’ll be there to cover the event live, so be sure to join us on Sept. 1.