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Anderson was the company's chief financial officer during that period, having been appointed in 1996. He joined Apple's board on leaving the post in 2004.

According to an Apple statement, Anderson informed the company that he believes it is in Apple's best interests that he resign from the board at this time.

Apple announced in June that it had set up a special committee of outside directors, independent counsel and accountants to investigate 'irregularities' in the granting of options. The committee examined more than 650,000 emails and documents, and conducted interviews with more than 40 current and former employees, directors and advisors. It found that stock option grants made on 15 dates between 1997 and 2002 appear to have grant dates that precede the approval of those grants. It found no irregularities after January 2002.

Apple said that the investigation raised serious concerns regarding the actions of two former officers in connection with the accounting, recording and reporting of stock option grants.

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It will provide all details to the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, but has not publicly revealed their names.

Significantly, the report found no misconduct by any member of Apple's current management team, although it did say that in a few instances CEO Steve Jobs was aware that favourable grant dates had been selected, but did not receive or otherwise benefit from these grants and was unaware of the accounting implications.

Jobs duly accepted some responsibility.

'I apologise to Apple's shareholders and employees for these problems, which happened on my watch. They are completely out of character for Apple,' Jobs said. 'We will now work to resolve the remaining issues as quickly as possible and to put the proper remedial measures in place to ensure that this never happens again.'

Apple, together with its independent auditors, will now review the report. It reiterated that it is likely to need to restate financial statements to record non-cash charges for compensation expense relating to the stock option grants.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that the key finding was the exoneration of Jobs.

'The risk was that if something bizarre happened and Steve Jobs got fired over it,' Munster said. 'That could have significantly impacted the company in a negative way. Steve Jobs is Apple. Ultimately, the scope of the backdating was bigger than we thought, but the impact turned out to be less severe.'