16 CEOs & product designers teach you how to ship products faster in new book
scotthurff.com
scotthurff.com
1) his latest UI designs are not very impressive at all, in fact they seem pretty amateurish
2) he's usually praised for his hardware designs, but even those were heavily influenced (read: he almost copied them) by Braun designs (even the latest Mac Pro design).
3) Before, he had Steve Jobs to "shape" his ideas, and tell him what is good design for the iPhone and what isn't. Remember that story about the first iPhone, how he asked the design team to make many designs, and then he used one, and the next day he said he's not "in love with it"?
So Jon Ive may be good at copying Braun products design, and creating 100 different iterations, where one is amazing, but he might not have a clue which one that is, and he needs someone like Steve Jobs, a "visionary", someone who truly understands the customer, to tell him which.
At best, your enumeration is highly speculative. We can only see the finished products and a little bit behind the curtain (the iOS 7 videos, "Steve Jobs" by Isaacson, etc.) — iOS 7 is a work in progress and we don't know how he currently works, or what sort of "idea shaping" currently goes on.
Also, the headline is just that — a headline. It's to get people thinking or talking about who makes great products, and what constitutes a great product.
As a side note, Ive had the marketing team do the icons. Here's why: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...