Do you love that linen-like background when logging into your iOS or Mac device? Well, it could be the most visible fatality as minimalism overtakes realism and design chief Jonathan Ive takes the reigns once held by iOS honcho Scott Forstall. That noise you hear is the splintering of the Jobs era and Cook era at Apple.

Forstall, who headed iOS development, was also the chief cheerleader of the late Steve Jobs. Jobs loved what design geeks term skeuomorphism, a Greek word meaning a tool's shape. In computer design, placing realistic objects - such as linen on a screen or ebooks stored in a wooden bookshelf - are used to lend a sense of assurance, like seeing a familiar face among a crowd of strangers.

But with Jobs gone, voices within the Cupertino, California firm which simply hated this sort of design gained volume. A particularly vehement enemy of Forstall's design philosophy: Industrial design guru Jony Ive...