Skeuomorphic UI's never left. That calculator comparison shows two skeuomorphic UI's, one just happens to be more ornamental than the other. Skeuomorphs only take cues from the real world, how far that goes is up the UI designer. Had they redesigned how a calculator functioned and laid out sliders instead of buttons for instance than the UI would be purely digital and not based on a real world example. I would be monumentally stupid but it would no longer be skeuomorphic.

Designers need to start learning the difference between skeumorphs and ornamental design, The two are different things and minimalistic UI's are not the opposite of skeuomorphs.

how can it make a comeback if it never left?

"Skeuomorphic Design  Blog Posts— An over-analyzed UX topic that is making a comeback "

[Insert Eli Schiff joke here]

Let's not talk about Skeuomorphic UI anymore. To skeu or not to skeu? I prefer to Skeumorph like a Power Ranger.

Scott Forstall was right all along!

lol I don’t think it’s making a comback, at least not in the examples showed in the medium post.

There are two forms of skeuomorphism I think; one that exist in visual style (stitched leather, polished metallic knobs, paper etc) and the other that exist in functionality, in a way that digital applications mimic the functionality of real-world objects.

The two might often ovelap but they’re not quite the same. There can be an amp application that mimics the functionality of an actual amp with flat colors.

Skeuomorphic design in the sense of borrowing real life objects and mimicking them in UI is something that won't go away. The analog style watch face on the Apple Watch is a good example. It is not bound by the construction of a round, analog watch, but it is something familiar. Same with calculator interfaces.

Highly rendered interfaces with shadows and textures, however, do feel dated in my opinion. That style of design was a passing trend from a few years ago. That being said, some trends can come back around in the future...