Generalized Carleson--Newman inner functions

We study a class of inner functions introduced by Gorkin, Mortini, and Nikolski, and motivated by Banach algebras and functional calculus applications. Answering their question, we produce a singular function that cannot be multiplied into this generalized Carleson-Newman class of inner functions (the class of functions satisfying the so called weak embedding property). Furthermore, we give elementary proofs for some results on these classes obtained earlier using arguments related to the Gelfand representation of $H^\infty$.