Palm Pre teardown shows iPhone-inspired design

This Palm hardware reminds us a lot more of Apple's engineering style than any of hardware we've taken apart by other manufacturers (like Dell)," the repair site observes.

The Apple-like quality isn't likely to be coincidental. Palm is thought to have scored a coup when it hired Jon Rubinstein as an executive board chairman, supplying it with one of the iPod's key creators. Aside from steering Palm away from an increasingly formulaic series of PalmOS and Windows Mobile devices, Rubinstein is known to have added or replaced many of Palm's engineers with former Apple employees, some of whom had worked on the iPhone earlier in its history.

The Pre's main components exposed but still assembled; a water damage sensor is highlighted on the left. | Image credits: iFixit.


iPhone 3G components laid out at top versus the Palm Pre on the bottom. | Image credits: iFixit.

[ via appleinsider ]