He made the comment in an interview with Kara Swisher of AllThingsD during last week’s CES trade show in Las Vegas, which was posted Friday at the media outlet’s site.
When asked how he views Apple as a competitor in the smartphone market, Mr. Rubinstein said, “We don’t pay that much attention to Apple….I know it sounds really strange.”
It must have sounded strange to Ms. Swisher, because she flat out said that she didn’t believe him. He insisted, however, adding, “I don’t have an iPhone. Actually, I’ve never used one.”
He also said that he felt Apple was making a mistake in blocking the Palm Pré from syncing with iTunes, saying, “We don’t think what Apple did is good for their customers, but Apple’s going to do what Apple’s going to do.”
To address the syncing issue for Palm users in the future, he said that he hopes the independent Palm developer community develops their own syncing apps.