Palm's Rubinstein admits not following Apple

Palm chief Jon Rubinstein in an interview at CES asserted that he doesn't compare his company's products against those of Apple's. He notes that the company's executives "don’t pay that much attention" to their rivals in nearby Cupertino and that he personally hasn't owned an iPhone to compare against. The executive also maintained that he doesn't worry about what Apple is doing as a whole."

"I don’t have an iPhone," Rubinstein told All Things D. "I've never even used one."

Many have pointed out choices like multi-touch and iTunes sync as evidence Apple's influence, but to date webOS has had a significantly different design philosophy, centering on multitasking, contact integration other historic weak points of the iPhone without following Apple's interface.

Alongside the comments, the CEO took a casual approach to Apple's more successful recent attempts to block Palm's webOS phones from iTunes, noting that it isn't "good for their customers" but accepting that Apple's opinion isn't likely to be swayed. Unofficially, it's suspected that Palm has a self-imposed limit that will make it stop modifying Palm phone firmware if it takes more than 40 hours each week.

Rubinstein further echoed what he told Electronista after his keynote on Thursday regarding other carriers. Although AT&T has said it will carry two webOS phones, the Palm leader said there is "nothing to announce" for now regarding the deal with the third US carrier. He has also so far declined to outline plans for Canada and other countries.

By Electronista Staff