1. If Ive has been on his way out for over a year ago (some say since 4) why is he so prominently featured in the design videos?
Give a little room to the next guy, surely someone must have been in the pipeline for such a long departure.
2. If Ive have been practically absent all this time, working on the office rather than product, why will his actual departure turn things around with regards to product design?
2. Because the organisation is now structured with the design team reporting directly to Operations which is unusual as designers at Apple didn't use to report to anyone (except the CEO).
2. Yeah I agree, that doesn't make much sense. I've also seen a lot of places saying his departure will severely hurt Apple but he leads a team, he probably is rarely directly involved in anything anyway. I don't see how him leaving changes anything, honestly.
For me, the real impact of Jony leaving, is what will happen to the other members of the design team. His team has been reported to have had very very little churn in the last couple of decades - with him leaving it seems likely that others will also look around. That will definitely have some kind of an effect - maybe for the worse, maybe for the better.