Almost 30 years after this object was conceived by Kane Kramer, 52, Apple admitted it was not the real inventor of the iPod. Apple was forced to produce evidence in a lawsuit over iPod-related patents and, so, it fetched that drawing below with the included specs to defend itself, the DailyMail is reporting. Kramer, however, hasn't been paid a dime.

Mr. Kramer, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, is the father of three. He recently had to sell his home and move his family to rented accommodation, following the failure of his struggling furniture business, the same report reveals. Documents filed by Apple in a court case now show the computer giant acknowledges him as the father of the iPod.

Two years ago, Mr. Kramer told the DailyMail how he had invented and built the device in 1979. The invention was called “the IXI” and could store only 3.5 minutes of music on a built-in chip. However, Mr. Kramer believed that its capacity would improve. The sketches showed a credit-card-sized player with a rectangular screen and buttons for menu access in the middle, which are almost identical to those found on Apple's iPod nanos.
 
Sadly, in 1988, after taking out a worldwide patent and setting up a company to develop the idea, Mr. Kramer was unable to raise the £60,000 needed to renew patents across 120 countries. Thus, the technology became public property.

As some may know, last September, Apple was taken to court by a company called Burst, over media player patents, which, apparently, the iPod infringed on. Apple used Mr. Kramer’s patents and drawings to defend itself in the legal dispute with Burst. Apple flew Mr. Kramer to Cupertino, California to provide the evidence necessary for its defense during the trial. Burst claimed it held patents to some of the technology used in the iPod and, based on that, demanded a considerable cut from Apple’s £89billion profits, thanks to the iPod alone.

Mr. Kramer said, “I was up a ladder painting when I got the call from a lady with an American accent from Apple saying she was the head of legal affairs and that they wanted to acknowledge the work that I had done.”

“I must admit that at first I thought it was a wind-up by friends,” Kramer added. “But we spoke for some time, with me still up this ladder slightly bewildered by it all, and she said Apple would like me to come to California to talk to them. Then I had to make a deposition in front of a court stenographer and videographer at a lawyers’ office. The questioning by the Burst legal counsel there was tough, ten hours of it. But I was happy to do it.” Kramer concluded by saying.