Imagination makes the PowerVR graphics core chip that powers the current generations of iPhone and iPod touch handsets.

Apple likes them enough to have become a huge licensor and even investor in the company. Well, it’s looking like that investment may pay off for iPhone users in the next generation iPhone and iPod touch (which many are still predicting will hit in July and September respectively).

Even bigger news? It looks like these new multi-core chips will be transparent from the developer’s point of view. That means Apple has far less risk in “fracturing the platform” by adding more GPU firepower to the next gen iPhone. Also, they look to be supporting OpenCL, Apple’s open source implementation that allows GPUs to be treated like CPUs and boost general purpose computing when they’re not throwing polygons and pixels around our favorite games or movies.

All very good news for the next round of iPhone innovations, and improved graphic performance for its next stated goal: to become the king of the portable games platforms.