Apparently the word is that Apple is subscribing for 8,200,000 new shares of Imagination Technologies Group plc,” at a cost to Apple of $4.8 million for this 3.6% stake in the graphics and video chip designer company.

Apple use Imagination Technologies PowerVR MBX graphics technology in both their Apple iPhone and Apple iPod Touch handsets, and Imagination Technologies aims to step up graphics on future products capabilities such as PowerVR SGX GPU and PowerVR VXD Video Decoder.

The PowerVR MBX supports the open source OpenGL ES 1.1 API set whereas the SGX and VXD support the more-powerful OpenGL ES 2.0 API set. So will Apple choose to move up to the PowerVR SDX and VXD in its future mobile devices? Difficult to say.

Source — theregister