I don't buy it. If your design philosophy is rooted in "this time is different" then it's a pretty shallow design philosophy. In other words, debates about "fl

I don't buy it. If your design philosophy is rooted in "this time is different" then it's a pretty shallow design philosophy. In other words, debates about "flat UI" vs "skeumorphism" (which is a false dichotomy imho, but I digress) should not be based upon things like "this era of instant gratification", it should be based upon how well the design serves the purpose of all design: effective and enjoyable use by humans. The reason skeumorphism exists as an idea is not because it is used to draw the eye to something, it's to create affordances to the user by leveraging their past experiences. This can range anywhere from "this sticks out on the page and can be pushed" to "this reminds me of my real desk calendar." Insofar as the Flat UI concept neglects to create these natural affordances it fails. The only argument one can make that draws upon the current status quo to defend it is if the world has moved on so fast that natural affordances created by depth and shadow can now be made just as effectively to most people by drawing a colored square instead. I'm skeptical that this is true, since three dimensional vision is pretty core to the human experience and human biology. I think what we'll see from Apple will not be an abandonment of skeumorphism in general but instead (in typical Ives fashion) a distilling of it down to its core. Expect depth and shadow, but with a laser-like focus towards using it to create affordances instead of add unnecessary flare. Expect its use to be toned down both in prevalence and also in degree. The cliched example of the leather nav bar has never served any real purpose wrt affordances, so I don't think Apple will be clinging too tightly to it.