But many of his greatest successes are almost pure hardware stories (Apple II, iMac, iBook, iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air, iPad), so you can't fault him for humming a catchy tune.

Are they really 'pure hardware'? I'm not so sure anymore. Admittedly I don't know much about the older stuff but some folks have argued that (most of) the hardware for things like the iPod/iPhone already existed but Apple had a fantastic knack for combining it in a compelling, design-driven way (inc. the interface/interaction). That's where the success lay. From that point of view it wasn't about the hardware but more the design and software.

I'm just thinking aloud here (not really trying to 'defend a point' as such).

You make a key point. When you think of the original iPod or the iPhone or several of the iMac designs, you most likely first think of the striking physical design of the device. The "Jony Ive" effect, if you will.

But each of these is and was utterly defined by the software they ran. Take the original iPod; without that great interface the device really would have boiled down to "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." and gone nowhere in the market, like basically all of its competitors at the time. Same thing with the iPhone. The interface is the thing, but that interface happens to exist only inside a wonderful, plainly well built and beautifully designed device that you enjoy holding in your hand even when it's off. One without the other would utterly change the effect of the whole...and I'd say this has been the key to Apple's resurgence: More often than not over the last ~14 years, they've delivered the whole package.

Perfectly reasonable argument. But I suppose what I meant was, many of his projects had an undetachable hardware element. This differentiates it from a pure software approach.