@yoshi:
i know. how many ways can you possibly invent a white and chrome rectangle?

this reinventing thing is hard work.

willyolio

"Sadly, when he couldn't raise enough venture funding to renew the IXI patent in 1988, the device became the Zune of its time, and was largely forgotten."

Wow. Was that really necessary?

Other than that, great article.

Evangelion

Creative and Archos FTW.

daftrok

It's tough reinventing products every 12 months. They need a better product testing group/strategy.

yoshi

What in the hell is wrong with this guy? I would have been like "Sure, you want my help with this lawsuit? No problem, I charge $100,000/hr for my consulting services"...Heck, $1,000,000/hr and they probably still would have done it...

My god no wonder this guys business ventures keep failing, he's never heard of a thing called MONEY!

sdgmcdon

CrayolaPod!

Will Entrekin

@Evangelion: Butthurt.

MastaFalse

@Evangelion:
It's hard for some people to admit that the Zune is actually selling decently.

Darkest Daze

What did it use, a 10 CM record in the bottom of it?

Wess

So what are the details about the case? What was Kramer's primary role for Apple? To provide prior art? The drawing above does look a lot like the first iPod but there were other portable digital music players before that time that looked that way too. Apple's success in this field isn't the original idea of the iPod but the simple UI and integration between the computer app and device.

Leonard Nimrod

Story of our life - Inventors invent devices, they are creative people and not business people - they rarely get the joy of getting paid.

JoOngle

Anyone expect anything less from a douchebag company like Apple?

rcast1986

@Darkest Daze: I know. I own both an iPhone 3G and a Zune 80G, so I've got the best of both worlds. I don't mind the constant Apple posts, I just don't get the constant Zune/Vista bashing that keeps going on. Kinda retarded, really.

Evangelion

JoOngle - No one ever said inventors/creative folks had to be stupid, but apparently a lot are.

sdgmcdon

@Evangelion: To make it worse, I actually checked the web address when reading that. I thought I was on Engadget.

Darkest Daze

Well, Microsoft invented the page up and page down, so everyone should pay them a royalty right?

Ken_Darrow

Think Different. Crib from others and then flamebait your competition.

OMG! Ponies!

Clearly MP3 players were already on the market before Apple made the iPod. What made the iPod uniques was the wheel for scrolling. His drawing does not illustrate a wheel for the controls. His MP3 looks like every other player on the market. You might as well say Apple stole the idea from creative, Oh wait...

BiZarRroBALlmeR

".. the device became the Zune of its time, and was largely forgotten."

Weird. I could have sworn I just closed my Engadget tab.

Bweetza

I hope the guy gets enough compensation to help him live a bit more comfortably. I feel a bit sorry for the guy.

robpruitt

For those that don't know, the daily mail is a rag. Most British people think of TDN the way we think of fox news.

kidlucrative

@Bweetza: I don't get that comment?

Crowbot

@Crowbot: It was an uncalled attack on the Zune a la Engadget. Though, I see plenty fanboi rants on this site too.

piginabox

The Zune hasn't been forgotten yet, that's a bad statement to make. There was some Apple bashing in there too, so it all went around. Having said that, the Daily Mail isn't to be trusted, and this guy didn't invent the iPod he just had an idea. There were DAPS before the iPod, and as Apple always does, they innovate on them.

kylo4

@Darkest Daze: I don't think it matters anymore, you get the same content just depends on which one publishes it first. Same narrow focus and idiocracy, every once in a while something new and interesting comes up.

Was a good article until the jab, I think the author was just fishing for comments. The way they are coming up lately I'm wondering if the editors are handing out bonuses based on # of comments.

rrogahn

basically what they've done is to use one stupid patent to defeat another.

Justifan

@Darkest Daze: Yea, my friend bought a zune... because it was on sale for $30....

xanderbeedle

Damn. They could have at least given him a 32GB Touch for his trouble.

shenanigans

@Wess: Believe it or not, we actually had computers and memory and stuff back in 1979. I remember non-volatile "bubble memory" was a hot thing for a while. I think it never really took off because of the expense and a few technical problems.

CSX321

"call from a lady with an American accent"

WTF? Brits have a lot of nerve :D

CEOself

That is funny. I would like to know how they found out about this guy's drawrings in the first place and get a hold of them. I doubt he had it hosted up on the interweb somewhere.

grald

Come on people dont be stupid....he had a patent it expired....Apple found him because the patent is called prior art work.

Are Giz readers really this stupid not to know that patents are available for inspection worldwide?

They didnt need his testimony i mean it helps but his patent is a matter of public record.

They didnt steal from him and at least he did make some money. Notice they dont say how much he was paid but that he was paid. For all you know it was $1,000,000 an hour.

Are all Apple haters this stupid...oh yes...yes they are!

Wowwzers2

@Evangelion: ooooow, did they hit that 'zune fanboy' nerve? :P

Zeuxis

obviously the zune hasn't been forgotten. it's mentioned right here in this article. you should have been like "become forgotten like that mp3 player from microsoft, what was it called again?"

and then there's the fact that even the people dissing the zune here know what it is (even if they are a bit...naive about certain excellent aspects of the zune).

just sayin'.

Alfonzo

lol, his ipod died after 8 month, apple probably gave him a refurb.

if it were me i'd have jobs kiss my ass and someone take a picture of it, and that picture will be framed and presented in the Smithsonian. Then i'll be glad to help the company out for FREE!

diehippiedie

Big company silliness. If they had class, they'd give him a life-pension. Inventors and innovators are everything. Apple is a marketing machine. A great one. (Microsoft can't even do marketing! )

altus

@Evangelion:

maybe the zune hasnt been forgotten (if thats what you are implying), but walk down the street and ask everyone wearing earphones what mp3 player they are listening on, i bet no one answers zune

Grahmo

Zune will never be forgotten. It will always be the classic case of epic failure, and will go down in history as the beginning of the end for Microsoft. Microsoft were so successful at aping Apple and making far more money on the imitation I guess thought it would be so easy that they didn't even bother trying. And, why should they?--the Microtards will accept anything they put out and laugh at better products they are such 'true believers' in the monopoly.

With all the jokes about the Zune, who could forget it? All the youtube videos like 'Zune Phone' and the pathetic Zune tatoo guy (who recently had the tat removed and bought an iPod) who could forget the brown excrement that was Zune?

brewerdude

Geez, the Microsoft fanboys are getting so touchy lately. Wonder why that is. Oh, yeah, Microsoft getting kicked around in all directions, failing horribly.

The Microsoft products have always been pitiful, but now people are starting to realize how bad they truly are.

Apple products are excellent. Eight month failure? If this really did happen, take it to the Apple store, you get a NEW one, no question asked.

Or, if you are just a Microsoft fanboy, post make believe horror stories all you want, the rest of us are quite happy with our Apple products and will NEVER go back to using monopoly-soft garbage.

brewerdude

that whole post made me laugh, everything about it.

lldsandsll

The real story is how apple jacked someones idea.
it's not about zune.

Maybe headline should have been
Apple rips off ipod creator then gave him refurb ipod

I hope he takes them to the bank for this, shit apples most successful product, it's only fair he gets half the profits for is idea.

[gizmodo.com]

wetworker

Those Sons of a bitches must pay!

VideoVampire

Don't tell the guy that Apple settled with Creative for $100M for patent infringement on the GUI.

kineticarl

Hold on...! 3.5 min of digital audio in a pocket sized device in 1979!!!! How was this guy not picked up by any electronics research companies?

KLanD

@Wowwzers2: You seem to be missing the point. No one can afford the outrageous costs to get a worldwide patent, which, back then, that would have been the equivalent of 600,000USD into todays money.
I feel that Apple should cut the man a couple of million to say that they accept him as the grandaddy of hand held media formats of today. It is not as if the company could not afford to give him that, could they? They have made 89billion USD since the products conception in 2001.

I know that i would be never be able to live it down that i lost out on such a huge invention. Can you imagine being in his money situation and then seeing everybody on the street with the invention you came up with first.

Bah! =( Almost reminds me that no one recognises me as the person who invented the word Roflcopter. Blizz admin my ass.

Strong Arm

"I feel that Apple should cut the man a couple of million to say that they accept him as the grandaddy of hand held media formats of today."

nonsense. its like saying most tech companies own startrek creator money.

imagine all the things Gene Roddenberry (startrek) could have "patented". Flat panel monitors, PDAs, hand held electronic devices in general, cellphones, wireless communication, Hypospray/sonoprep, telepresense/net conferencing, voice recognition... its good his patent expired. such patents are a bit absurd.

most things on that device are obvious. buttons were not his invention, neither are screens. the rest is plain common sense. even players before the ipod had similar layouts.

"I know that i would be never be able to live it down that i lost out on such a huge invention. Can you imagine being in his money situation and then seeing everybody on the street with the invention you came up with first."

he didn't. it took a full 2 decades to finally reach a player that was practical. he lost nothing because he had nothing. computers playing music were in development in the 50s at places like bell labs. its what inspired hal9000 singing daisy in 2001. so i guess he would owe those people credit as well? mostly this is apple fud really. its hardly an invention, its more like a general concept, and well sci fi is filled with such concepts, they are a dime a dozen.

Justifan

Apple's game-changing iPod, Briton, Kane Kramer, give that man a Noble Prize! You mean in 1979 he invented this thing! Wow. How and from what state of mind? Just incredible to think. Capable of playing a mind-busting 3.5 minutes of music, the IXI prototype was Kramer's ticket out of obscurity. I would say so..

Rogbog4299

a drawing of something is very far from a prototype or finished product.

it would have been 'the zune of its time' had it actually made it to market.

i doubt this could have been built back then, period.

mr-happy

@Evangelion: Agreed. But people seem to like jumping on that bandwagon.

Iczer2

@Leonard Nimrod:
You mean the UI that Apple copied from Creative's Jukebox? :-)

Yeah, it was a good UI, which was why they copied it and later lost the lawsuit to Creative.

Iczer2