There’s an unfortunate feeling in some parts of the media that Steve Jobs is the beginning and the end of Apple. If he’s away, even temporarily, the company simply cannot grow at record levels, and is doomed to return to that beleaguered status it occupied for so many years.

That in large part explains why the news of his third medical leave since 2004 knocked the stock price down some 5% at the start of trading Tuesday; it recovered to a roughly 2% loss ahead of the announcement of Apple’s quarterly financials.

Keeping up with most expectations, Apple’s holiday quarter had blowout numbers. With record revenues of $26.74, Apple earned more than $2 above most financial industry estimates. Profits rose more than 77% to $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. These numbers compare to revenue of $15.68, a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, last year.

Three of Apple’s four major product categories had record sales. Some 4.13 million Macs were sold, an increase of 23 percent over last year, surprisingly good news at a time when overall PC sales are flat. A total 16.24 million iPhones were sold, representing an 86% growth rate over last year, and iPad sales cataloged 7.33 million units, also above estimates.

When it comes to the Mac lineup, portables were king, with some 2.9 million of them sold during the quarter, representing a roughly 70%, with the balance covering the Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. These numbers compare to some 63% note-books sold in the year-ago quarter, when the new iMac line was garnering a surprising percentage of total Mac sales.

As expected, iPod sales declined seven percent to 19.45 million, still not to shabby, considering the rest of the digital music player makers sell far, far less.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Apple’s ailing CEO, Steve Jobs. “We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

According to CFO Peter Oppenheimer, Apple is offering a conservative estimate of revenue amounting to $22 billion, and diluted earnings of approximately $4.90 per share, for the current quarter.

If you want to explore the figures in more detail, you can check the report posted at Apple’s site.

During the quarterly conference call with financial analysts, both Oppenheimer and COO Tim Cook, who is managing the company’s day to day affairs in Jobs’ absence, answered the usual softball questions from industry analysts.

The conference call also brought news that Apple’s stellar Mac sales were heavily influenced by the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Apple doesn’t break down sales figures to cover individual Mac models, other than the distinction between portable and desktop, but it does seem clear that the refreshed and reinvigorated MacBook Air was well received by the public.

This one came as a bit of a surprise to me: Although it was largely believed that the iPhone’s production has caught up with demand, Cook reports that Apple still has a sizable backlog, and that more units could have been sold if they could be built faster. However, Apple appears to have caught up with demand for the iPad, despite the fact that sales outlets have expanded greatly.

When it comes to the prospect of iPad cannibalization of Mac sales, Cook admitted “there is some cannibalization,” but then added a contradictory comment: “But I also think there is a halo effect.”

So maybe it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other?

Cook says: “We have introduced millions of people in Asia to Apple through the iPhone. And we’re now introducing many more through the iPad, and I think some of those decide to buy a Mac.”

“If this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good.”

As usual, Apple’s crew deflected any questions about future products and product directions.

When it comes to enterprise penetration, Apple says that some 80 of the Fortune 100 companies are testing or deploying the iPad. A similar number are using iPhones. So much for the ongoing story about Apple’s failure to make progress in the business market.

In all, some 160 million iOS products have been sold, which means 160 million computing devices that cannot run Adobe Flash, and probably will never be compatible. With the prospect of over 100 million unit sales next year across the entire lineup, it seems clear from this vantage point that Flash is going to become less and less relevant. Of course, Google hasn’t noticed, despite the incredibly poor performance provided by Flash on the Android OS.

Despite some expectations from the media, there were no requests for further information on the health of Steve Jobs, which might be expected, as Apple has made it clear nothing more is going to be said on the subject, at least for now. Also missing in action was any news about total quarterly sales of the Apple TV. You have to assume that perhaps a few hundred thousand units were sold after that initial announcement about one million sales a few weeks back.

Then again, that’s just Lilliputian when it comes to a company the size of Apple, and I expect Apple TV will remain a hobby, at least for a while. In the meantime, it appears that Apple’s stock price is poised to recover in the days to come.

When Steve Jobs announced Monday morning that he was taking a third leave of absence from Apple to deal with unmentioned medical issues, the stock was poised to take a drubbing when trading resumes Tuesday; the price is already down in overseas trading. Unlike most other tech companies, Jobs is regarded as so intertwined with the success of the company he co-founded, it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly survive without him.

Lest we forget, his second medical leave, in 2009, lasted nearly six months, during which time he received a liver transplant; he was treated for pancreatic cancer during his first absence from Apple. COO Tim Cook, considered the best inventory management person in American industry, was placed in charge, and Apple’s sales continued to soar. New products were released without let-up, though it’s quite possible Jobs gave them the green light before his departure, or perhaps reviewed them during his recovery.

According to a report in The New York Times, Jobs, of late, has appeared more emaciated than ever, and has only come to the office two days at work, choosing to have his lunch in his office rather than the company cafeteria. To be fair, such reports have not been confirmed by Apple, and I don’t expect they will be. In his statement to Apple employees announcing his medical leave, Jobs stated: “My family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.”

The timing of the announcement is also curious, although it may make sense once Apple’s quarterly financials are disclosed Tuesday afternoon. For one thing, if Apple reports a record quarter, even though Jobs wasn’t present on a full-time basis during that period, it might dilute the concerns that Apple cannot possibly persevere without him. Certainly the way he restored the company to profitability makes him seem indispensable, but a lot of the hard work was performed by the people he hired, such as COO Tim Cook, head product designer Jonathan Ive, and loads of other executives and their teams. This may be why Jobs has almost always, of late, praised his employees for their hard work creating Apple’s iconic gadgets.

Of course, those privacy requests will not survive real world scrutiny. Apple is already under fire for not providing sufficient details about the health of their mercurial CEO, nor a clear-cut succession plan. Such a move, evidently to the board’s way of thinking, might cause the chosen successor to be bombarded with solicitations from rival companies. At the same time, the financial community wants to be reassured that Apple will continue to function properly if Jobs’ latest medical leave becomes permanent.

From the moment the announcement was made public, the print media and TV talking heads were busy speculating over the extent of Jobs’ illness, and the prospects for recovery. This sort of morbid discussion is typical for someone in the public eye. For Jobs, such talk occurs because he has become the most famous CEO on the planet. Apple’s path from a near-death experience to becoming the largest tech company on the planet, based on market cap, is the stuff of legend.

Now I’m not about to count Jobs out. His last medical leave resulted in talk of that nature, with all sorts of dire predictions that he wasn’t long for this world. It’s safe to say, however, that anyone who has suffered from cancer and other ills, particularly if they receive an organ transplant, will probably have ups and downs, according to what the medical experts say. Jobs is likely taking all sorts of immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection of that new liver, along with a cocktail of other medications, and serious side effects are likely.

It may well be that Jobs simply needs to spend a few months at home to receive the proper treatment, although he says he’ll remain CEO and will continue to be involved in Apple’s strategic decisions. Without knowing the facts behind this decision or his condition, I’m inclined to think he deserves a rest, and certainly millions of people out there, Apple customers and otherwise, are rooting for his eventual recovery.

The other question is, of course, the extent of Jobs’ involvement since returning to Apple in mid-2009. If he has truly reduced his direct participation in company affairs, all of their great product executions were accomplished by others, with his approval. If that’s the case, maybe Jobs can continue to work part-time at Apple, even direct from his home, and concentrate on getting better.

I suppose the real question is whether this medical leave is, as feared with the last, a permanent decision, even if Jobs survives and his health improves. Despite the concerns over a secret succession plan, it may well be that Cook has long been groomed for the top spot, even though he doesn’t have the magnetic personality of a Steve Jobs. It’s possible that, with a little training, he can become a little looser in his public demeanor, although that may not matter if Apple continues to manage public information as effectively as they have up till now, at least in most respects.

My gut feeling is, regardless of the condition of Steve Jobs, his company is in safe hands, and will continue to lead the pack among players in the tech industry for many years to come.

As you know, Apple Inc. has never made its presence known at the Consumer Electronics Show, which took place, as usual this year, in Las Vegas the first week of this month. So if you could take yourself away from the gambling tables for a few hours, you’d get to see some of the latest and greatest examples of consumer technology.

However, once again it didn’t play out quite that way.

Last year, everyone was talking about the possible arrival of a tablet computer from Apple. Never mind that nobody had, up till that point, demonstrated the potential for success of tablets in the mass market. The few that were sold were consigned to vertical markets, such as medical practices.

But it didn’t matter. Sure, a few prototype tablets were on display. Microsoft’s beleaguered CEO, Steve Ballmer, again tried to tell us how tablets featuring Windows 7 were the next great thing, but it still didn’t ring true. Not for a minute.

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When Steve Jobs introduced the latest incarnation of the MacBook Air last fall, he made it perfectly clear that you were seeing the Mac portable computer of the future. In the past, the Air had been the poor stepchild for the rest of the lineup, reportedly with middling sales, but sufficient to keep Apple’s faith and inspire periodic revisions.

Although the numbers won’t be known until next week, preliminary reports indicate another blowout December quarter, with record numbers of Macs, iPhones and iPads sold. Surveys show that Apple outpaced a flat PC industry, where the iPad may have cannibalized sales of netbooks big time. Macs seem immune, or maybe Apple would have sold more if there was no iPad.

In passing, it’ll be interesting to see if the analysts make a more substantial move towards combining tablet and traditional PC sales. If that happens, Apple’s worldwide share will of a sudden expand to join the top tier . Clearly PC box makers don’t want that to happen — until they have lots of iPad wannabes to sell.

But when you return to the MacBook Air, how does its design influence future MacBooks and MacBook Pros?

One strong possibility is the increased use of solid state drives (SSD) in place of traditional mechanical hard drives. That development would be a long time coming, a revelation for those of you who have suffered from failed hard drives, particularly in portables. My son underwent that catastrophe a few months back, but had a full online backup that allowed him to restore his stuff.

My personal encounter of this sort dates back to an iBook Apple sent me to review more than a decade ago. On the day I was to leave to San Francisco to attend the Macworld Expo, the drive began to click annoyingly, as performance slowed down dramatically. I hoped it would survive for the duration of the trade show; it didn’t, but I was able to borrow a Windows note-book from a publisher for whom I was writing regular articles. It was an awkward situation, but it worked out reasonably well.

And in case you ask, no I don’t think the hard drives Apple uses are any worse than the ones other PC makers place in their gear. Stuff happens.

The problem with an SSD is, unfortunately, one of cost. You figure on paying 10 to 20 times the price of a traditional hard drive of similar capacity. Imagine taking a $999 MacBook and spending upwards of $500 to get an SSD that matches its 250GB capacity.

The comparably priced MacBook Air comes with 64GB of storage, and you have to make serious compromises to survive the lack of space to put your stuff, such as putting most of your data on another Mac, and installing only the essential apps, documents, music and videos.

But that’s today, and it probably won’t be long before a 128GB is cheap enough to replace the one that has half the capacity. The situation changes drastically. My MacBook Pro has roughly that amount of data, and I could dump a third of it without feeling threatened.

It’s quite possible Apple will also hasten the migration to SSD by letting you put more of your files in the cloud, perhaps that new server farm they built in North Carolina. Suddenly the need for lots of coal storage will be far less significant for many of you. But I do agree that Apple will probably have to wait a couple of years, at the very least, before making a wholesale migration to SSD. Even then, content creators may insist on a traditional hard drive because of the superior price/storage ratio, or perhaps a hybrid configuration that’s part SSD-part mechanical, which can still speed up performance tremendously.

The other notable change might be the loss of the optical drive. Apple has avoided Blu-ray, and it doesn’t seem that a whole lot of customers are complaining, even though you can get one on a PC, or from a third party to install on your Mac. As you no doubt recall, Steve Jobs referred to Blu-ray as a “bag of hurt,” because of the complicated licensing scheme. Apple’s direction is to move everything online, so you won’t need an optical drive. On the MacBook Air, the OS comes on a tiny USB stick. An external optical drive is optional, but I wonder how many need it beyond requiring a crutch?

Although the discovery surprised me, I have probably used my MacBook Pro’s optical drive maybe once or twice since it was purchased. I do make CD copies of music I’ve purchased from iTunes on my iMac, but once my wife becomes accustomed to accessing the same tunes streamed from my Mac on our Apple TV, I expect my need for burning CDs or DVDs will be lessened severely.

I do, however, feel that Apple made a big mistake not including gigabit Ethernet on the MacBook Air. You get a slower 100 megabit USB dongle as an optional accessory. I understand Apple’s desire to simplify the ports, but that’s too simple. Wi-Fi is still far slower than wired, though that, too, is apt to change as faster standards come on line.

The next generation MacBooks and MacBook Pros will likely be slimmer and lighter too, a consequence of adapting some of the MacBook Air’s design tricks. Beyond that, I don’t expect to see touch support spread beyond the touch pad. That’s just not Apple’s way, at least until they devise a better way.