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Back in the days before caller ID, one of the only ways to screen an incoming call aside from having someone else answer and say you weren't home, was to let the answering machine pick up. Then, based on the urgency and content of the call, you could either pick up or ignore and let the recording finish. With caller ID, you can ignore calls you don't want to take, but you don't know the subject of the call, which can leave you with worries - what if it was an emergency? Of course you could always wait for a voicemail to show up and then decide whether or not to call back, but judging by Apple's new patent, you may soon be able to listen to voicemails on your iPhone as they are being recorded, and answer if you want to.

According to Apple Insider, Apple probably acquired the patent through Rockstar consortium's purchase of a collection of some 6,000 Nortel patents (Rockstar is a consortium of tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion,

The original Auxo is a must-have jailbreak tweak for iOS 6. Besides improving app switcher functionality, Auxo brought a fresh design to the firmware that took advantage of the larger iPhone 5 display. Apple has since integrated similar app cards into iOS 7, showing a thumbnail of each app screen when switching apps.

Now designer Sentry is working on a sequel for iOS 7 appropriately named Auxo 2. The tweak is currently in development and should be released later this month. When it comes to Auxo 2 functionality, Sentry released screenshots and the Vine videos below to keep jailbreak fans on the edge of their seats.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has been hiring hundreds of engineers and supply chain managers in China and Taiwan, in an effort to support a faster paced product release schedule. With a pair of new iPhones on the way (supposedly), a new iPad, a new Apple TV and the iWatch among others, Apple now has more new products than ever before. The amount of new products, coupled with an increasingly shorter product cycle and a major push into the Chinese market with the China Mobile deal, warrants the hiring spree. Apple now has over 600 engineers and operations staff in China, and a global total of 80,300 full-time employees, up from 72,800 a year earlier.

Some other notable Apple financial news over the past week:

At Apple's annual shareholder meeting last week, Tim Cook noted that Apple has acquired 23 companies over the past 16 months, and the company's research and

Last November, Microsoft released its XBox One companion app, SmartGlass, in the App Store, allowing XBox One owners to navigate their consoles via their iPhones or iPads to track achievements, message friends, watch game clips and more. Now, according to The Verge, Microsoft is planning a big, cross-platform push to bring XBox Live functionality to both iOS and Android games.

A description within a recent Microsoft job listing (that has since been removed) serves as evidence of the software giant's plan: "We will create a modern framework that is open-source, lightweight, extensible and scalable across various platforms including Windows Store, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android." The listing

A member of the Chinese forum WeiPhone has posted two purported images of an iPhone 6 digitizer. The pictures reveal that the next-generation Apple handset will feature a larger screen due to its lack of side bezels, however, it is unknown how the pictures were obtained and if the images are real.

As you can see above and below, the images seem to show how the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 differ, but the cutout for the Home button on the purported iPhone 6 digitizer seems a little bit off. This could mean the images are fakes, or they were just taken of an early prototype for the next-generation iPhone.