iPod developer to chair Palm board

SUNNYVALE, Calif. Former senior vp of hardware engineering and head of the iPod division at Apple, Jon Rubinstein, has joined Palm as executive chairman of the board.

Rubinstein joined Apple as senior vp of hardware engineering in 1997. As part of Apple’s turnaround, Rubinstein quickly overhauled the engineering teams, product roadmaps and manufacturing processes, resulting in a new, more nimble engineering department. In 2001, Rubinstein was instrumental in conceiving the iPod and became head of the business when it was spun off as a separate division in 2004. Additionally, Rubinstein led the team that built the iMac, and he incorporated into Apple products a pair of little-known technologies that became commonplace as a result – USB and Wi-Fi. Before joining Apple, Rubinstein spent two decades at a variety of other computer companies, including Hewlett-Packard and NeXT, and started his own computer company, Firepower Systems Inc.