There is something confusing about this promotion. When it was first announced in the Stephen Fry interview Fry asked Ive why he would want to relinquish two departments successfully under his control. Ive replied that he was "still in charge of both". In the all employee memo Tim Cook sent out he said "Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years". And in Ive's bio on Apple's executive page it twice references his design "team". Yet when Apple's executive page was updated for his title change those two new VPs were also added and their bios say they report to Tim Cook. So Ive in charge of both but the leaders of those teams report to Cook? That seems odd. I guess hence why some are speculating it's an SEC thing. Though I don't get why it's so important to hide Ive's salary. One would assume his salary and stock options are the same as every other SVP at Apple.
Another Yahoo non-story. Even the article admits that much (at the very end, after many have stopped reading):
While this is a fun theory to play around with, it seems like a lot to go through just to keep Ive's paycheck secret. The most likely explanation is that Ive didn't enjoy the day-to-day managerial responsibilities, so he handed off some duties to Dye and Howarth.
Another possibility is that Cook wants to lessen Ive's influence over products.
Without Jobs around to help edit his designs, Ive has stumbled a bit lately on both hardware and software, at least according to what many fans have said on forums.