When you’re an exec in charge of a whole area, the buck stops with you and, to quote Steve Jobs - the reasons stop mattering.
As a user I don’t care about having “extraordinary insight into the development process”. All I know is you’re vice president of interface design and the interfaces are getting worse over time.
When I worked for someone else (now self-employed), some bugs were my fault. But with features and other intentional changes, the bosses had to sign off on them, and in some cases there were vigorous internal debates, but the bosses had the final say and could overrule objections.
No, he is saying that we should blame the person who has command responsibility. It is pretty well-established principle in jurisprudence actually.
The stockholders do not make design decisions but only elect the board of directors. The board of directors do not make design decisions but only elect the CEO. The former CEO Steve Jobs did make design decisions, but the current CEO Tim Cook appears not to make design decisions, delegating that to subordinates. Alan Dye is Vice President of Human Interface Design at Apple. He does make design decisions; indeed that's in his job title. Dye previously reported to Jeff Williams, COO, but Williams just retired, so it's unclear who Dye reports to now. In any case, Dye is likely the person at Apple who has the final say on design decisions.