During a talk at SXSW yesterday, tech journalist Steven Levy talked about how he had once brandished an iPod with an external microphone to record an interview with Steve Jobs.

Jobs was horrified when he saw that Levy had a case on his iPod. Jobs asked Levy why he would choose to change the form factor on such a beautiful device.

“So I told [Jobs], but it’s beautiful! I don’t want to get scratches on it,” Levy said.

Jobs replied, “But that’s how you know it’s real, that it’s a real thing.”