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.