Apple’s UI design has, for a long time, subtly mimicked reality—the brushed metal of iTunes riffing off a jukebox or stereo. Skeuomorphism can be a good thing—it helps us feel comfortable as visual creatures. If virtual things look like real things, they might be friendlier for us to use, right? This rationale has shaped the things on our screens since there’ve been screens to stare at: the desktop, the folder, the email icon that looks like a postal envelope. Vestiges of the physical world, even obsolete ones, are borrowed from to make computers feel less like alienating boxes and more like the good old days.