Following Steve Jobs appearance at the Apple event held on Wednesday in San Francisco, the Apple co-founder spoke out in an interview about the new iPod lineup, his weight and health issues.

Jobs' return to the stage at Wednesday's keynote was a welcome surprise for Apple fans. He had returned to work at Apple full-time in June, following his liver transplant.

In his introduction at the iPod event, he thanked members of the Apple community for their concern, and also expressed gratitude toward co-workers who filled in, in his absence.

In an interview with David Pogue of The New York Times, Jobs explained that the iPod touch, unlike the iPod nano, was not given a camera because the company wanted to focus on portraying the device as a gaming machine.

The Apple CEO said that the company's main goal was to lower the price of the iPod touch as much as possible, and he believes it achieved that with a 8GB model for $199.

What customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine, Jobs said.

We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it’s the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that’s the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it, he added.

Jobs also discussed his health, as Wednesday's appearance was his first official in public since receiving a liver transplant earlier this year. He said that he's eating a lot of ice cream to put on weight, and he probably needs to gain about 30 pounds.

Watch the complete video of Apple's media event with Jobs' keynote here.

Ipod The New York Times ITunes Steve jobs