SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple is doling out more of its cash to shareholders and preparing to split its stock for the first time in nine years in an attempt to win back investors fretting about the iPhone maker’s slowing sales growth and pace of innovation.

The moves announced Wednesday as part of Apple’s fiscal second-quarter earnings report are aimed at boosting the company’s stock price, which has been hovering about 25 percent below the peak it reached in September 2012. The bellwether Standard & Poor’s 500 has climbed by 28 percent during the same period.