With the iPhone announcement, Apple has raised the bar when it comes to product design. To build upon their existing innovations, Palm has hired an ex-Apple employee who boasts a history of accomplishments in product and user interface design.

Paul Mercer, a former Apple computer engineer, was the lead designer on the "Finder" team on Mac OS 7. More recently, he founded Pixo, a company that provided tools to develop the iPod user interface. Mercer has also worked the Samsung Z5.

Palm has not provided any further insight as to Mercer's position within the company, but you can expect him to play a role in the development of the UI of future devices. Palm recently licensed the Garnet OS source code from ACCESS, allowing them to innovate on the Palm OS Garnet code base. Palm would retain the ownership rights in its innovations.

According to PalmInfoCenter, Palm has also hired Marc Blank, who is known in Treo circles for his development of the popular Chattermail email client. This hiring will also end the development of Chattermail.

Source: PalmInfoCenter