Steve Jobs was not a product designer. He emphasized design, but he didn't design almost anything himself.
Just because he didn't move pixels across the screen doesn't mean he wasn't setting the design language, defining taste, sweating detail and holding the vision. No-one would suggest that a show-runner didn't make TV, or that a director wasn't a filmmaker. Jony Ive's design changed (and improved) immensely one he was working closely with Jobs. Once Jobs was gone things drifted. Similarly Pixar was hyper-focused under Jobs then began to drift as soon as he was no longer involved.