[clark_dent]

Computer UIs needed borders and outlines because there are no brain-intuitive visual cues: no depth parallax, no shading, nothing shifts as you move your head, and until relatively recently they had poor contrast and brightness variability compared to the real world.

It was also a compromise for interface device limitations. We didn't have 4000 DPI mice with scroll wheels and 26 configurable buttons; you were lucky to have a 1024x768 resolution; and 16 bit color was for people shelling out $$$. Obvious borders and some padding between elements were a necessity to click what you intended to click.

[ConceptJunkie]

> Obvious borders and some padding between elements were a necessity to click what you intended to click.

That never changed.

[nottorp]

> until relatively recently they had poor contrast and brightness variability compared to the real world

When has that changed?

And even if you mean the displays got better, the new Apple is fighting tooth and nail to erase any form of contrast from their UIs.

[acephal]

Sad watching Apple design repeat Microsoft’s mistake of trying to push through a single UI paradigm across mobile and desktop (and, especially, VR in Apple’s case)