I don't remember Jobs praising minimalism, but rather beauty. It's all throughout his biography, he was a big fan of beautiful, functional design. I think skeuomorph interfaces are beautiful if done right - yes, they might be more beautiful than functional, but what if Apple values beauty over functionality? I remember reading about an Apple engineer working hard to get rounded rectangles to draw in their early OS without affecting overall performance, and Jobs pushing him further and further until it was done. Rounded rectangles are so not functional.