If the article is to be believed, Ive had already stepped away, at least mentally, by late 2014. Which does mean that the much maligned 2016 Macbook Pro might not have been fully his fault. Tbh that seems a lot more likely than the usual HN "Jobs kept Ive in line" argument. Ive had been leading design at Apple for a long time. It's be a little odd if he didn't learn any sense of pragmatism from working with Jobs or from being the design leader.

Instead it makes a lot more sense if the 2016 MBP was a result of the other designers being let loose with no supervision from Ive. Lacking leadership, they went in on no ports and a gimmicky Touch Bar.