New and Noteworthy: Apple Manages Options Probe Damage; 24-inch iMac's crisp picture shames old TV; more

Apple Manages Options Probe Damage Reuters reports that Apple's board cleared Chief Executive Steve Jobs this week of any misconduct over stock options accounting problems and Wall Street cheered him for taking broad responsibility. "Shareholders want Jobs to survive with his job intact because he's seen as the driving force behind Apple's success in recent years with iPod music players and Mac personal computers. But the judgment of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is still to come. [...] On Wednesday Apple said a review by a special board committee found that Jobs was aware in some cases that options had been backdated, but that he didn't benefit from these grants and was unaware of the accounting implications. About 120 companies are either under federal investigation or have launched their own inquiries into whether they manipulated the grant date of options to benefit executives who received them." More.

24-inch iMac's crisp picture shames old TV Melissa Jones reports that the 24-inch iMac puts her 25-inch living-room television to shame. "The most noticeable thing about the 24-inch iMac is that screen. It?s a widescreen monitor with bright, sharp colors. The resolution is 1920 x 1200 pixels. By comparison, the standard resolution on a television is 640 x 480 pixels. The resolution is almost too much for some video formats. I tried out a couple of DVDs on this computer at full screen. Older DVD movies with midrange resolutions, such as the concert DVD from three years ago I tried, became a bit fuzzy at full screen. But newer DVDs, such as the Batman Begins DVD I tried, look fantastic on this sharp screen." More.

Better Windows' security keeps Apple safer: Gartner ZDNet reports that research group Gartner has said that Mac OS X users are now safer from a mass attack -- such as Blaster on Windows -- than they were two years ago, partly because Microsoft has closed so many holes in its ubiquitous platform. "In March 2005, in a report titled 'Don't Assume Your Macs Are Immune to Security Flaws,' Gartner vice president and research fellow Martin Reynolds warned businesses reliant on Mac systems to beware of 'spyware infestations' and highlighted the potential of a hybrid virus that would attack both OS X and Windows." More.

Three reasons an iPhone could actually suck Business 2.0 breaks ranks with most speculators in the media regarding Apple's rumored iPhone, pointing out some potential pitfalls including carrier interference. "Ever wonder why most cell phone interfaces are junk? Why they're a tangle of confusing menus and hidden features? I'll tell you why. It's because the carriers insisted they be that way. It sounds ridiculous in 2006, but the way the carriers look at it, the logic is simple. They spend hundreds of dollars in phone subsidies and marketing costs getting you to sign up for a phone plan. So every time you dial the phone, they want to own your experience. They want you to feel like you've got a cool Verizon phone or T-Mobile phone, not just a cool Motorola phone or Apple phone. So they insist that their logos splash across the screen when the phone powers up, and that certain features ? typically the ones likely to make them the most money ? be front and center, whether the user likes it or not." More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• Norton AntiVirus: Oct. 4 definitions update causes issues on some Macs, fix
• Security Update 2006-006 (#3): Another fix for AirPort issues
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 (#7): Software Update not automatically checking; Adobe Illustrator issues (cont.) -- Pathfinder problems; more

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