Apple Buys Stake in Imagination

Apple can be a pretty secretive company when they want to be and at other times they seem to let the cat out of the bag in a rather obvious way.

The cat in question this time is a large purchase of shares in a company called Imagination Technology. The amount is a 3.6% stake that cost them roughly 4.7 million US Dollars.

Imagination Technology is the creator of PowerVR Mobile Graphics. The components including their upcoming PowerVR SGX VXD will enable better graphics on the iPhone and iPod.

I have to wonder if this announcement was done to offset the stock decline that happened after Apple announced it would not be attending MacWorld after 2009.

Read more here.

Back in April, AppleInsider reported that "the next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal between Apple, mobile graphics leader Imagination Technologies, and Samsung, the Iphone's ARM 'system on a chip' manufacturer."

More recently, in September of this year AppleInsider reported that an anonymous international electronics systems company had acquired a multi-year, multi-IP, multi-use licence agreement for its current and future portfolio of PowerVR mobile graphics components, including the next generation PowerVR SGX VXD video IP cores.