1. Jonathan J "Jon" Rubinstein was born on October 1956 and is an American electrical engineer who played an instrumental role in the development of the iMac and iPod, the portable music and video device first sold by Apple Computer Inc in 2001.
39 Facts About Jon Rubinstein
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Jon Rubinstein left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14,2006.
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Jon Rubinstein became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc.
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Jon Rubinstein became CEO of Palm in 2009, replacing former CEO Ed Colligan.
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On January 27,2012, Jon Rubinstein announced he had officially left HP.
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Jon Rubinstein has served on the board of directors of online retailer Amazon.
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Jon Rubinstein is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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Jon Rubinstein's mother was an academic who received a PhD from Rutgers University.
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Jon Rubinstein is a graduate of the Horace Mann School, class of 1975.
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Jon Rubinstein spent about two years in the company's manufacturing engineering division, developing quality-control techniques and refining manufacturing processes.
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Jon Rubinstein left HP in 1986 to join a startup, Ardent Computer Corp.
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In 1990, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs approached Jon Rubinstein to run hardware engineering at his latest venture, NeXT.
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Jon Rubinstein joined Apple in February 1997, which came right after a year in which Apple lost US$816 million.
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Jon Rubinstein joined Apple as Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, and a member of its executive staff.
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Jon Rubinstein was responsible for hardware development, industrial design and low-level software development, and contributed heavily to Apple's technology roadmap and product strategy.
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Jon Rubinstein sold over 15 product lines, nearly all of which were derided as inferior to other computers available at the time.
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Jon Rubinstein helped initiate an extensive cost-cutting plan affecting research projects and engineers.
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Future rollouts under Jon Rubinstein's management included all subsequent upgrades of the Power Mac series.
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At a Tokyo hotel later that evening, Jon Rubinstein met with Jobs, who was in Japan on separate business.
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Jobs agreed, and Jon Rubinstein assembled and managed a team of hardware and software engineers to ready the product on a rushed, eight-month schedule.
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Jon Rubinstein's production contacts proved invaluable, too; the iPod's sleek, minimalist design, with its high-gloss, engraveable metal back, was a mass-manufacturing triumph.
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Jon Rubinstein - sometimes called the "Podfather" because of his role in developing the iPod - was instrumental in creating a robust secondary market for accessories such as speakers, chargers, docking ports, backup batteries, and other add-ons.
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In October 2005, Apple announced that Jon Rubinstein would be retiring on March 31,2006, and he was succeeded as iPod chief by Tony Fadell.
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Jon Rubinstein was given a promotion which actually reduced his power at Apple.
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In 2007, Jon Rubinstein joined Palm as executive chairman of its board of directors; at about the same time, he stepped down as chairman of Immersion Corp.
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Jon Rubinstein took control of Palm's product development and led its research, development, and engineering efforts.
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Jon Rubinstein was instrumental in developing the webOS platform and the Palm Pre.
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Jon Rubinstein debuted both on January 8,2009, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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On June 10,2009, just four days after the successful release of his brainchild, the Palm Pre, Jon Rubinstein was named the CEO of Palm.
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Jon Rubinstein had said that one of Palm's keys moving forward would be to "bring on more carriers and more regions," and the company launched its Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones on Verizon Wireless in January 2010.
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Jon Rubinstein was the featured guest in September 2009 at the first episode of "The Engadget Show," a web videocast produced by the technology weblog.
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Jon Rubinstein rejoined HP in 2010, when the latter bought Palm for $1.2 billion.
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Jon Rubinstein agreed to remain with the company for 12 to 24 months after the merger.
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Shortly after, Jon Rubinstein stepped down from the webOS unit and assumed a "product innovation role" elsewhere within HP.
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Jon Rubinstein announced plans to make webOS open source in December 2011.
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On January 27,2012, Jon Rubinstein left HP after his 24 months contract ended.
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In May 2013, Jon Rubinstein joined the board of Qualcomm, a leading provider of chips used in mobile devices.
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Less than one year later, it was announced that Jon Rubinstein was leaving the company because he and Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio "mutually agree that he is not a cultural fit for Bridgewater".
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Jon Rubinstein is married to Karen Richardson, a technology-industry veteran who is currently on the board of BT Group plc.