It is an old strategy, when a company decides to do something unpopular, to change CEOs so that they have a (knowing, complicit) fall guy. Then after the changes are done, they axe the fall guy, and bring in someone new who will “get back to our roots” etc etc, giving some minor concessions but retaining the primary changes that were architected before the fall guy showed up.

Apple is probably feeling the pressure from tariffs and decreased consumer spending, so they need to make cuts but don’t want to harm Apple’s reputation long-term. Thus the above strategy is invoked.