Before Jonathan Ive, there was Robert Brunner, the designer behind Apple's original, iconic PowerBook. Brunner, who left design firm Pentagram this summer and now has a new product-design studio, Ammunition, worked with Amazon.com's Lab126 unit, also staffed with Apple veterans, to design the Kindle e-book reader, a source tells us.

Jeff Bezos, sitting in an office in Seattle, is basking in the credit for Amazon.com's new Kindle e-reader. But who really deserves credit for it? Lab126, an Amazon subsidiary in the heart of Silicon Valley — Cupertino, Calif., Apple's hometown. With former Apple and Palm employees running the quasi-startup, some have speculated that Lab126 might be coming up with an MP3 player or handheld computer. Instead? The Kindle, which many have dinged for a design that hardly matches the iPod or Treo. ("The Pontiac Aztek of e-readers," says a friend of blogger Jason Kottke.) The good news: Lab126, which now openly takes credit for the Kindle, is hiring two more designers. If you want to do something about the Kindle's design, now's your chance.