I don't necessarily agree with this. I think the reason why flat UI is having a moment is the same reason minimalism in general works. You get to remove anything things that are superfluous and focus on data/information. As awesome as spinning 3D globes and background rivets are, I prefer flat design when it comes to getting information.

I think it's best to try to get rid of unnecessary garbage in your UI, maybe that's the skeuomorphism, or maybe it's the amount buttons, images, content, etc. If done well, flat design is a usability win.

> It's because flat UI looks good on retina / 5k.

I can't tell if you're being serious. But if you are, could you explain why?

Otherwise, this is one of many reasons I don't like flat design. It doesn't take advantage of all those pixels. It's just a flat wash of color.

A few reasons. Things like gradients and other skeuomorphic components that are usually jpegs look horrible if you don't have fallbacks for retina. The screen is brighter and crisper, so those vector buttons look great. etc.

My girlfriend has, I think, an android 2.3 phone. Flat designs are HORRIBLE on it. However, they look crisp on a retina phone, so much that it actually look like the screen is made of physical (material) components.

As for people liking it or not? That's just a trend. We are going back to skeuomorphism in a few years, mark my word.

It doesn't "look good" because some weird combination of large screen and flatUI, rather its easy to render on the screen because it has the same flat color in large areas than some sort of shading.

Not really, Apple introduced transparent/translucent windows, it doesn't really simplify the rendering. BTW, Microsoft already made this mistake with Vista, and AFAIK regrets it (also, Windows look terrible on Remote Desktop because of that).

Yeah, because we've all had 5K displays for, like, for-EVER now...