Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein talks Apple, Palm on first Engadget Show

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The inaugural Engadget show’s pretty good viewing led by an interesting chat with current Palm boss and former Apple exec, Jon Rubinstein, who talks about the “terrible state” Apple was in at the start of his time there, and confirms he was involved in the decision to adopt USB, stop use of the floppy disk, and in the choice of 1.8-inch drive used in the iPod.

“While we started working on iTunes we started playing with some of the music products that were available on the market, and they were terrible, really poor products.” So Apple decided making a music player would be fun.

When he decided to leave Apple, he gave 18-months notice and finished development of the iPod nano and video, and headed off to Mexico for a year and a half off, before a call from former Apple CFO, Fred Anderson, then at Elevation Partners, inviting him to “take a look at” Palm.

Take a look at the rest of the interview to find out what Rubinstein did next. “I think Palm is an incredible opportunity,” he says.

He also had a good crack on Apple secrecy: "You guys are always looking through Apple’s garbage can, no one’s looking through our garbage can," he said, while discussing the secrecy surrounding launch of the Palm Pre, which should ship in Europe by Christmas, he said.