Just remember that an apple product design cycle is about 2 years at the least, so Ive's fingerprints will be on everything coming out of Apple for at least the next two years. However, that does not mean that there hasn't been some "reversing" happening since Ive announced his resignation. At this point, others are in charge and he is only overseeing the last bits of his projects before he is very proudly ushered out the door.
He has contributed a great deal (just as Scott Forstall had) but his contributions are coming to an end.
One of my hopes is that Tim Cook and Jony Ive picked the correct person to replace him (and you bet your britches that Ive had some say in that). Let's hope that the next person executes the same sort of visionary approach that Ive had (although, as you said, Scates, with a bit more attention on function).
For instance, let's hope the next Home Pod has some hardware buttons. Let's hope that the next iMac can lose the chin while gaining more guts. Let's hope that the next iPod is the size of the last Nano but holds 128GB of music. Let's hope that Airport returns. Let's hope for a $1000 display and a $2000 Mac Pro for the rest of us. Let's hope the iPhone continues to sizzle. Let's hope that Ax for Mac becomes a hotly competitive reality. And let's hope that Apple can reignite our interest enough that these boards explode with excitement, again!
