Skeumorphs Unite!

The raging debate over the creeping themes of skeumorphism in Apple's software continues in an article by Farhad Manjoo over at Slate with an ill-conceived question-as-a-headline: Should a Calendar App Look Like a Calendar?

That's quickly followed up with this little gem:

The design battle that’s tearing Apple and the tech world apart.

Wow. This article is shaping up to be to tech journalism what skeumorphism is to design, namely:

[M]imic[ing] the elements in an older device that were functionally necessary for that device to work.

I'll admit that in the past this kind of hyperbole might have been necessary to draw attention to the lowly byline of a tech journalist, but in the 21st century, when nerds are the new cool, I think an article like this can attract plenty of views based on its own merits.

Anyway, Farhad leads off with the firing of Scott Forstall, who is rumoured to have been in love with virtual things that looked like other real things, and was supposedly the main drive towards skeumorphism at Apple.

Some legitimately good points and other interesting facts then find their way into the narrative, such as:

[T]he iPhone calculator’s three-dimensional buttons are an archetypal example of skeuomorphism. You needed three-dimensional buttons in physical calculators; on a flat screen, 3-D buttons aren’t necessary. (On the other hand, leather stitching in the Calendar app isn’t skeuomorphic, because the leather isn’t functional, just decorative.)

Which leads Farhad to conclude:

[T]hat’s really the main advantage of skeuomorphic designs: They remind us of stuff we already know, and stuff we already know feels comfortable.

Now while that may be true, he's missed the real issue here, which is that the implementation of skeumorphic design often interferes with or contradicts the practical usefulness of a piece of software. Address Book under OS X Lion is a prime example of this.

Unfortunately, in the end, all Farhad can offer by way of constructive criticism to Jony Ive in his new role is this:

It’s true that iOS’s apps have gotten a little over the top, and they could do with some cleaning up.

Maybe it's certain kinds of tech journalism that "have gotten a little over the top".