Ipod inventor gets a temp job at Apple

By Ian Williams on Sep 9, 2008 3:19 PM
Filed under Hardware

It appears that Apple's ever so popular music machine may was actually developed by a Brit back in the 70s.

Hertfordshire based Kane Kramer, now 52, came up with and patented the design of a digital music player when he was just 23. Dubbed the IXI, the original music player had only enough capacity to store three and half minutes of music – although Kramer expected this to increase over time.

However, the idea fell into the public domain in 1988 when he couldn't raise enough cash to renew the international patents.

Because of this Kramer has never previously received any recognition or money from his design.

This all came to light when Apple used his designs and patent papers to settle another copyright infringement case with Burst.com.

Apple took Kramer in as a consultant, flying him to California to give a deposition about his creation.

"To be honest, I was just so pleased that finally something that I had done which has been a huge success and changed the music industry was being acknowledged. I was really quite emotional about it all," Kramer told the Daily Mail.

The dispute between Apple and Burst.com has since been settled confidentially out of court.

Apart from this brief acknowledgement of his design and the payment for his time at the hearing, Kramer has received no other compensation from Apple, although he is apparently in talks with company and is seeking some payment from the copyright that he owns on the drawings used in the case.