This is part of something that was an inevitability once Jobs died. Tim Cook, for all of Apple’s success under his tenure, is a bean counter. Jeff Williams, the heir-apparent, is also a bean counter. The people driving the most growth at Apple are bean counters in Services.
We’re still coasting on that tradition of placing design at the top of the chain, but we’re already seeing cracks in the veneer (take a look at System Settings in Ventura and tell me with a straight face that it was made by a company that values good UI design principles). The design team has been hemorrhaging people and Apple now isn’t even bothering to replace leadership there anymore.
It’s been a good run, but the writing is etched into the wall that we’re already in a long period of decline for all the things that made Apple great. They’ll survive, they’ll still turn out decent product, but everything that made it special will just continue to get a little worse every year.