Apple has finally admitted a British man who left school at 15 “is the inventor of the iPod,” the Daily Mail claims.

At issue is the case of Kane Kramer, who allegedly invented technology that drives Apple (and other) music players 30 years ago – but hasn’t seen any return on his investment.

It appears Kramer’s claim to have invented some element of the music player was borne out by Apple in its case against Burst.com. Apple flew Kramer to California to give evidence during that trial – Kramer could prove prior art in the case.

The UK inventor put together a concept called the IXI in 1979. A digital music player, the original conceit stored only 3.5 minutes of data on its chip, was credit card sized and held a rectangular screen along with a central menu button.

While Kramer was able to patent the invention then, 1988 saw his company fail to secure the £60,000 needed to renew the patent across 120 countries “and the technology became public property”, the Mail reports.

While he no longer has claims, he was able to help Apple defend itself against Burst.com. He told the Mail: “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 is negotiating with Apple for compensation from the copyright that he owns on the drawings, but has received only a consultancy fee so far – despite Apple’s billions of dollars in the bank.

The British inventor last year had to sell his house and move his wife and three children into rented accommodation