Earlier, we highlighted Apple's cash position, and wondered why investors would oppose Carl Icahn's propose for the company to increase its cash return by a modest $13 billion (below).

In its quarterly financial report yesterday, Apple pleasantly surprised investors by beating most analyst expectations. It also announced a "significant" increase in its cash return (share repurchase and dividend) program. While nice, it's actually not that significant, although it does exceed what Icahn proposed.

The increase entails an additional $30 billion in share repurchases and an increase in the dividend "on an annual basis". The share repurchase program thus went to $90 billion, from $60 billion. They increased this quarter's dividend 8%, too.

According to this helpful chart, Apple has $151 billion in cash right now. We estimate that it's on track to have $238 billion by 12/31/15, based on forecast operating cash flow, and before further repurchases and dividends.

Apple now plans to return to shareholders $65 billion of that cash ($44 billion in share repurchases, and $21 billion in forecast dividends). That will leave them with $173 billion in cash by the end of 2015.

Previously, they planned to return $35 billion to shareholders, relative to what they have today. That would have left them with $203 billion at the end of 2015. So, the increase in share repurchases reduces their forecast cash balance by about 15%.

How an investor thinks about this depends on what you want. You could view it as a 50% increase in cash return. You could also view it as responsive to investors like Icahn, who proposed an effective increase of $13 billion in cash return. Perhaps a good start.

Or, you could view it as a relatively small reduction in what are otherwise immense cash holdings. That's how we think about it.