Re: Oh no no no
I think you're misattributing the horrible skeuomorphic UI of iOS to Jonathan Ive; surpsisingly so, as I couldn't think of a visual style that's more at odds with Ive's cold minimalism than the wild-west souvenir-stall that is iOS.
The original UI of MacOS X was based on the then-current current hardware design, by Ives and co. Mr Forstall, on the other hand, was in charge of the iApps like GarageBand - the canonical example of a skeuomorphic UI. As a Mac user, I'm glad his view has not prevailed. OS 10.7 is stuffed with stupid visual effects that do nothing to address the usability of the OS (or fix longstanding problems).
When asked, Ive had always diplomatically dodged the question of why Apple's phone software UI was so out-of-step with the cold minimalism of its hardware. I'm interested to see what his own views on design will bring to the device screens, but I can't see a radical change right away: Their large userbase means that Apple now run a risk of alienating the many millions of users who are accustomed to the current look and feel, users who will react negatively to any change...
It's the same problem Microsoft face with Windows 8, or Ubuntu with Unity. Both have been subjected to a storm of negative press by people who react badly to change (a common trait of the tech community). However, the initial outrage dies down quickly once people give the new idea a chance (Unity suffers from the choice available in Linux - overall, it's an improvement over previous desktops, but the ability to easily revert to an older shell means that most users won't bother to find this out -- sometimes choice is bad in the long run)
"It's people from his background that made Windows 8 what it is today "
Hardly. Ive is a product designer, working in three dimensions, whereas Windows 8 is heavily influenced by typographic design. The two disciplines don't really coincide very much, except perhaps that Ive's simplified forms approach the functional minimalism of a general-purpose typeface.
Consistency is the key to a good UI, not what the buttons look like, and you only have to use Windows 8 for a few minutes to spot the cues within it. These visual cues are clear and simple (boxed text = tap here to do something; arrow beside = tap here to expand, etc). If you wanted to compare something to its clean, simple UI, you would need to go back to the original Macintosh.