Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs stated that he will be taking six months off for medical reasons.   In the meantime, Tim Cook will be filling in for Steve Jobs.  Due to the announcement, Apple shares went down about 2.71% today and is down between 6 and 7% after-hours trading.   Jobs did not give any additional details regarding the leave.

However the reason behind why Jobs did not attend the MacWorld conference this year was due to hormonal imbalance.  Since Jobs is stepping out of the limelight for a while, I do not expect Apple to make any major announcements about upcoming products until the summer.  It seems like the iPhone and iPod sales will be on auto-pilot for the rest of the year anyway.  Piper Jaffray predicts that 45 million iPhones will be sold by the end of 2009.

Below is the full letter that Jobs sent out to the company:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

[via Apple Media Advisory]