What's With Apple's UI Confusion?
Apple released a new version of iTunes the other day (iTunes5). One of the things Jobs touted during the announcement was the new "cleaned up" interface. The problem is that this new cleaned up interfaces is 100% unique from any other UI for any other Apple app out there.
Which brings me to my point. Apple has several iLife apps or built in apps that come with your Mac purchase, but few of them look the same. Why is that?
Safari uses the old brushed metal look, iTunes has a newer grey plastic look, the new Mail has a kind of white plastic glassy hybrid look, and don't even get me started on Garage Band. Then you have their pro apps like Final Cut, Motion and so on.
Just take a look at the screen shot on the left. Why not just pick a couple standardized interfaces for particular types of apps and use them. Do we really need 5 or 6 different UIs for such standard apps as Mail, Safari, and iTunes? By the way, my favorite is iTunes 5 - let's have more of that.