I suspect that this has more to do with hiding his compensation than anything else. They want to keep his compensation private to prevent competitors from trying to poach him. (It makes it harder if they don't have that information.) The SEC requires companies list the compensation of their top 5 executives. By naming him Chief of Design it is easier for them to keep his pay private.
Is this a promotion?
I think it's more likely that he's preparing to take a step back, and by introducing new designers at Apple (Marc Newson, for example.) they're slowly preparing the public (and investors especially) for the idea of Apple without Ive.
or possibly been in charge of hardware and software UI/UX was just too much work for one person when you include the admin overhead.
I'm not a huge fan of Apple or it's stuff but I respect the amount of work that goes into what they do on the design side.
Impressive to see 5,000 design and utility patents to his name!
I think really highly of Ive but I'm sure a lot of those are "spend 5 minutes giving feedback, get your name on the patent" kind of situations.
I have to agree. Even say 30 years of solid work would be over 150 patents a year. With 365 days in a year that is a patent every 2 1/2 days. I'd call bull on that being anything but feedback/sign your name.
Kind of points to the patent issues we face.
If that is all it takes to move a design/function from good to great...