Apple credits Kane Kramer with invention of the digital audio player -- sort of

Apple phoned up Kane "world's biggest failure" Kramer recently and had him testify in court against on Burst.com on Apple's behalf. It was a bit of a coup for Kramer, who invented the digital audio player in 1979 (with a whopping 3.5 minutes of song capacity), lost the patent when his company IXI went bankrupt in 1988, and hasn't made a dime off the idea since. While Apple was happy to use his expert witness to get out of a legal bind with Burst, and to pay a consultancy fee, there are no plans to give Kramer a slice of that iPod revenue pie. "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." Still, he's looking for a bit of cash from Apple for his copyrighted drawing of the player (above), which bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple's iconic player.

[Via MAKE]

[CosterMonger @ Sep 8th 2008 9:48AM]

the round corners are just uncanny

[drumdbeat @ Sep 8th 2008 9:48AM]

Uber-Old-iPod

[Tom W Browning @ Sep 8th 2008 9:50AM]

'Coo'? It's 'coup'. As in 'coup d'état'.

[Jerk Face @ Sep 8th 2008 9:58AM]

Journalism at its finest.

[James Yopp @ Sep 8th 2008 10:17AM]

I know! What is is with education these days? This must be what happens when journalists read second-grade level drivel online instead of actual literary works. I'm sick of these horrid little gaffes like "tow the line", and the 'sight/site/cite' and 'pedal/peddle' errors made repeatedly here. Bad grammar makes me [sic]!

</rant>

[jupiterthunder @ Sep 8th 2008 10:52AM]

Right. B/c surely, if he didn't know 'coup', he'd most certainly recognize it when used in the context of 'coup d'état'. Of course.

[Kelmon @ Sep 8th 2008 11:22AM]

Perhaps he likes pigeons.



Hmmm...pigeon...

[Kelmon @ Sep 8th 2008 11:22AM]

Perhaps he likes pigeons.



Hmmm...pigeon...

[iEye @ Sep 8th 2008 9:55AM]

And all he got was a free hotel stay and a second Gen Refurbished 2gb ipod nano for his troubles?

Kane Kramer is a brilliant Moron... I would have Fleeced Apple for all I could get... or at the very least help the other company Sue Apple and then take some of the cut...

[mymaclife @ Sep 8th 2008 11:01AM]

And the last time Apple called you for advice was when?

[Geir E @ Sep 8th 2008 3:23PM]

"Kane Kramer is a brilliant Moron... I would have Fleeced Apple for all I could get... or at the very least help the other company Sue Apple and then take some of the cut..."

So why on earth should he want that? Because he should be jaleous Apple did with modern technology what he just could dream of doing with his patent?

Would be like the people that first patentet anything resembling a flying machine, even though it barly was capeable of sustain flight over the same distance a human can leap, should sue Boeing for stealing their idea.

[USAFMech @ Sep 8th 2008 9:57AM]

"coo"? Coup, perhaps? Paul, have you been at Autoblog long?

[iEye @ Sep 8th 2008 9:57AM]

And since we are on the topic of Apple... This new banner ad is just lame, I actually fell asleep faster watching this than the MS Seinfeld Ad about shoes...

[Apple Rep. @ Sep 8th 2008 10:49AM]

yes we all know your veiw: apple sucks, everyone else is good. That's not bias at all... Hahaha grow up your pathetic bud

[Christian Martin @ Sep 8th 2008 11:11AM]

"grow up your pathetic bud?" Are you insulting his marijuana?

[fanman @ Sep 8th 2008 11:12AM]

What the hell? He dislikes mudslinging in adverts and so is a fanboy?

Get hold of yourself...

[Apple Rep. @ Sep 8th 2008 12:06PM]

his weed is fine, i told the dealer to put lead in it, haha ;)

[yaksplat @ Sep 8th 2008 9:59AM]

Looks more like the Diamond Rio to me.

[farfisa @ Sep 8th 2008 10:05AM]

Wow, a lot of players on the market look almost exactly like that... and it's almost 30 years old! Bet a lot of people are wishing that drawing stayed hidden!

But if there's only room for one song, what are all the buttons for? ;) Then again, this predates even home CD-players [citation needed], not to mention any form of compression--today, it might fit 10 songs!

[Kane Kramer @ Sep 8th 2008 11:40AM]

Well done for spotting the buttons, yes you would fit ten songs on with MP3 file format. The pre-production proto-type recorded and played 3.5 minutes of sterio, 16 bit, 44.1 khz sampling rate and was aimed at the pro recording market as a master recorder and editor. This would lay the ground to roll out the consumer players that we forecast to launch in 1999.


Very best wishes to you

Kane Kramer

[james @ Sep 8th 2008 8:27PM]

umm, how could this thing play mp3 files in 1979 when there was no mpeg until 1988 or therea'bouts. I find it hard to believe there were any handheld devices built in 79 that could process cd quality compressed audio. my old 100 mhz amd couldnt even play mp3 in stereo, too processor intensive!

[Dave Chappelle @ Sep 8th 2008 10:07AM]

"who invented the digital audio player"

NO! u lie,
that pic means nothing, Sony actually was the reason these things are where they are now.

anyways why does this sucker want to get @ Apple, the were nowhere neat inventing it, i would be attacking Sony Walkman.. 360 million sales worldwide compared to just under 150 million.(Apple)

[Joel @ Sep 8th 2008 10:35AM]

Please check your grammar/spelling and try again...

Thanks!

[Geoff @ Sep 8th 2008 10:08AM]

A "coo?" Hey look, it's a dove!

[amazingrugs @ Sep 8th 2008 10:11AM]

This this article is is very informative informative.

[kccboy2004 @ Sep 8th 2008 10:42AM]

@wazz,

interesting analysis.

can you please explain to what degree the above points apply to Xerox ?

[konshuss @ Sep 8th 2008 10:18AM]

thank god this never made it off grid paper, it'd have ended up as a noisemaker in my bike spokes.

[wazzupalex @ Sep 8th 2008 10:14AM]

Sorry, but Apple have done nothing wrong and Kramer is no different from many other inventors who are ahead of their time. What differentiates people who profit from their creation / idea is a rare combination of the following, something that Yahoo, Google, HP, Apple, Sony, Panasonic, Amazon and a number of other companies that succesfully harness their iP benefit from:

a) Fiscal stability of the founders, perhaps through a stable family situation, so it is possible to focus on the work at hand, not scraping a living together. The rags to riches stories are VERY rare and don't happen. The founders of ALL the aforementioned companies were from middle class backgrounds and never had to worry about money. I know many people who fail to comprehend what it is like to be poor or even struggle. Sad but true.
b) A small team of people who 'get it'. A symbiotic pragmastic trust based relationship where common sense rules. Greed will kill any venture.
c) An honest company lawyer. Someone who will never bill you until he knows everything is right and that his good work will be repaid from the success of the venture he/she is protecting.
d) A great brand - inspires confidence in staff and customers. IE, think online books, think Amazon.
e) Parthership with a larger company that can provide resources you don't have. For example, Yahoo shared Netscape's servers in the early days. Google then shared Yahoo's. And so on.
f) The second you invent something that you know in your gut is 'it', patent it immediately, even if just filing a provisional patent. The peace of mind is great, plus you are a lot more likely to attract investment, strategic partnership etc.
g) Focus.
OK, enough. Back to work.

[Luis Giron @ Sep 8th 2008 10:32AM]

What that sketch didn't disclose is the size...back in the 70's that must have been the size of a small fridge.

[bioadam @ Sep 8th 2008 10:36AM]

A point made in the original "world's biggest failure" post was the filing date of the original patents: 1981. All of his patents would have expired by 2001 anyway. Check your calendars: when did the iPod really start making money for mp3 players (now called "digital audio players")?. Keeping those patents active in 120 countries would have eaten up a large share of profits Kramer would have made. Not only would he have paid maintenance fees, but also attorney's fees for local counsel in each country. Had he relied on only the United States patent, there is also the matter of someone else having invented mp3 audio compression and other technologies that made early mp3 players feasible. All these other technology licenses would have eaten into Kramer's license fees.

Kramer was not so much a failure as he was 20 years ahead of his time, which in the business world, is synonymous with failure :(

[spacegravity4me @ Sep 8th 2008 10:44AM]

Wow, you know, you're making me feel great about my possible future...

[riggs @ Sep 8th 2008 10:44AM]

Giddyup

[Dale @ Sep 8th 2008 11:00AM]

Microsoft has Seinfeld, Apple has Kramer. Wonder who'll get Costanza - Ubuntu?

[Tpat @ Sep 8th 2008 11:07AM]

eh...Newman...

[fanman @ Sep 8th 2008 11:15AM]

A toaste to Mr Kramer, I think. I couldn't do the commute without you. :)

[Jubei @ Sep 8th 2008 11:20AM]

Did Microsoft consult with the person who really invented Page Up/Page Down? I think MS doesn't need to, its fairly obvious that MS invented that feature.

[dBs @ Sep 8th 2008 11:35AM]

GOSH! Even back THEN people were copying the iPod....duurrrr.

oh and /sarcasm for the inept.

[konshuss @ Sep 8th 2008 11:54AM]

whew. thank you for clearing that up. if you hadn't thrown in that qualifier sentence i and countless others would've thought, "wow, this one guy at the bottom of a forum listing has broken a major story". i've already sent emails to engadget telling them to cancel the headlines.

again THANK YOU for pointing out you were being sarcastic.

[BP @ Sep 8th 2008 12:51PM]

At least he still has control of his "Bully Button" project:
http://www.kanekramer.com/html/work.htm

[Justin @ Sep 8th 2008 12:59PM]

Hmmm, I thought that Nathan Schulof invented the MP3 player....hehehehe.
http://www.nathanschulhof.com/index.html

[sinai @ Sep 8th 2008 1:27PM]

I bet you this guy gets stiffed by Apple.

[PHO @ Sep 8th 2008 1:29PM]

KRAMER, if you read engadget, please please send me one of these devices... it may be the only media device my dad will use as he is stuck in the past! It'll be the first dime you've made off of it since 1988!!! (But can you up the capacity a tad?) Thanks!

[Mark @ Sep 10th 2008 10:26AM]

I remember being in University around 1994-1995 and me and Engineering buddies were messing around with MP2 and listening to audio encoded with that. We had wacky ideas about making a player to play that stuff as a Term project. This would have been 2Y before anything commerical came out. MP3s hadnt really shown up at that point and MP2 lacked alot of the compression that MP3 had. A full song was probably about 30Meg in the days of 8Gig HDs. We gave up the idea and continued to party and get drunk. We were going to call it the Whizbang2000...

[Magallanes @ Sep 8th 2008 5:24PM]

Im not sure if the patent was lost but in 1999 this patent expired.

And, in retrospective, the 2006 Ipod is so damn awful.

[HektikLyfe @ Sep 8th 2008 7:52PM]

He already had one up on some of the newest iPods. It had independent volume control! Ahead of the game in the 70's. Wow. It looks like there might have even been a power switch at the top.

I bet this thing had a2dp and cut & paste functionalities too!

[fred @ Sep 9th 2008 2:39AM]

i don't see why he deserves credit. he produced no innovation or breakthrough which is why his device was dead on arrival, a non functional dud. merely an idea waiting for others to do the work necessary to make it useful. and anyone can have such an idea so its hardly something to celebrate. most of that stuff in the picture is just common sense, buttons and digital devices weren't exactly unknown in that time. and screens..well they tend to be on the FRONT of the device. think about it, startrek the original series started in 1966. What are tricorders? they are PDAs. just because it could be imagined doesn't mean squat. look at a basic calculator from the time, sometimes form follows function. its just obvious.

whats worse is that every blog site is running the same story with little investigation. so just how much did 3.5minutes of memory cost in 1979? was it stereo at a high bitrate? or was it some scratchy dodgy sounding garbage? how much did this thing cost to make? 20 years later it still cost atleast 150 dollars for a 32mb rio 300 pmp.

and anyways, as early as the 1950s computer researchers were getting music from computers. where do you think the inspiration for the hal 9000 daisy song comes from, it was real.

[CJ @ Sep 9th 2008 7:09AM]

Every great innovation needs to start somewhere, the first powered 'car' was a three-wheeled, chain-driven 'horseless carriage' with a 1HP, single gear motor.

The first audio recording device was simply a needle attached to a diaphragm, which etched grooves into a tinfoil-wrapped cylinder.

And the less I say about the march of computers in the last sixty years, the better.

What I'm saying is, although this might not be the most impressive piece of technology, it just might be the basis of all MP3/4 players in existence today. And although Kane Kramer was never successful, his design is the ancestor of modern technology, and he should deserve credit. As for investigation of specs, who really cares? The fact is, it's an old technology, not to mention a prototype. It was never marketed, and the only reason Mr. Kramer isn't living in luxury right now is because not everyone has the money or abilities to uphold years of go-nowhere patents, like Apple, who has the money to patent every little idea that they have.

[ray @ Sep 10th 2008 6:26AM]

Gawd, you are harsh, man. What's a million or two to Apple? Peanuts. After all they acknowledged that he's the inventor of something similar to the iPod, otherwise why would they pay for him to be a consultant in their case against Burst?

[fred @ Sep 9th 2008 2:40AM]

i don't see why he deserves credit. he produced no innovation or breakthrough which is why his device was dead on arrival, a non functional dud. merely an idea waiting for others to do the work necessary to make it useful. and anyone can have such an idea so its hardly something to celebrate. most of that stuff in the picture is just common sense, buttons and digital devices weren't exactly unknown in that time. and screens..well they tend to be on the FRONT of the device. think about it, startrek the original series started in 1966. What are tricorders? they are PDAs. just because it could be imagined doesn't mean squat. look at a basic calculator from the time, sometimes form follows function. its just obvious.

whats worse is that every blog site is running the same story with little investigation. so just how much did 3.5minutes of memory cost in 1979? was it stereo at a high bitrate? or was it some scratchy dodgy sounding garbage? how much did this thing cost to make? 20 years later it still cost atleast 150 dollars for a 32mb rio 300 pmp.

and anyways, as early as the 1950s computer researchers were getting music from computers. where do you think the inspiration for the hal 9000 daisy song comes from, it was real.

[fred @ Sep 9th 2008 2:46AM]

i don't see why he deserves credit. he produced no innovation or breakthrough which is why his device was dead on arrival, a non functional dud. merely an idea waiting for others to do the work necessary to make it useful. and anyone can have such an idea so its hardly something to celebrate. most of that stuff in the picture is just common sense, buttons and digital devices weren't exactly unknown in that time. and screens..well they tend to be on the FRONT of the device. think about it, startrek the original series started in 1966. What are tricorders? they are PDAs. just because it could be imagined doesn't mean squat. look at a basic calculator from the time, sometimes form follows function. its just obvious.

whats worse is that every blog site is running the same story with little investigation. so just how much did 3.5minutes of memory cost in 1979? was it stereo at a high bitrate? or was it some scratchy dodgy sounding garbage? how much did this thing cost to make? 20 years later it still cost atleast 150 dollars for a 32mb rio 300 pmp.

and anyways, as early as the 1950s computer researchers were getting music from computers. where do you think the inspiration for the hal 9000 daisy song comes from, it was real.