I think that's part of the point here. The visual metaphor of leather doesn't make much sense, and is only there as an ornament because it (apparently) looks attractive. Why include the leather at all, if it's not a helpful metaphor for using the product?
Some of these are actually pretty attractive and don't appear to interfere with the usage of the app. Others aren't so attractive and many more are hard to use.
Why is a texture automatically worse than a solid colored background?
I wasn't arguing that texture is worse. When used appropriately, it's generally better than solid colors, both in terms of UX and just visual attractiveness.
But there is a certain category of textures that seem to come up most often on this site. Things like leather, denim, paper that perhaps remind users of rough, tactile, durable materials. These metaphors get a lot of use, especially on iOS, and I find that it's funny to call them out sometimes. Sure, it's attractive, but also perhaps a bit derivative.
Devil's advocate: leather, or any skin for that matter, creates a distinctiveness to the app that serves as kind of a "key" to your mental model of how it works and what it's for.
That key can be used in various incarnations of your app's UI, on the web, across platforms, or even in system services (like notifications or Siri's sheets) to let the user quickly make the association with your app.
nobody needs a devil's advocate, it is a cheap way of making an argument for the sake of making an argument.
leather does not add distinctiveness to your app, it creates an association between your app and leather that now shares a bond with the 100s of other apps that use leather. the only apps i can think of that have used leather to such an abstract, memorable extreme are paypal (blue leather wtf?) and find my friends, the classic.
mental models have nothing to do with this, unless the average user has a previous experience that associates your product/service/offering with leather. even cowboy boots, even some sort of evocative mood, whatever, that's fine, but if you are using leather because you think you're making it distinct, there are far too many others doing the same.
Well, obviously there are tons of apps that have diluted leather's distinctiveness (and leather is but one example), but the argument for a garish, non-functional skin is still as I outlined above.
Also, I didn't mean to imply that leather in itself teaches you how an app works. However, once you've used an app with a distinct skin, the next time you launch that app the skin, as a sort of visual touchstone, will help you remember how you used it in the past, etc.
