Just tell me that today's release of Aero is in early alpha… please. I thought it couldn't get any worse than Luna, but Microsoft “topped” themselves with this new UI. It's honestly like somebody's going out of their way to make Windows ass-ugly. It's not impressive, it's not slick, and it's not anywhere *NEAR* the elegance of OS X's user interface and experience. Instead, it looks like some of the worst skins I can dig up on WinCustomize.com. Since I haven't been down to the convention center for WinHEC 2005 yet (to pick up my own copy of this pre-beta version of Longhorn), here's a Neowin page that illustrates what I'm talking about. Thumbs way down.
Why don't they open it up to *REAL* designers?!
UPDATE: Three Microsoft insiders have informed me that this build's UI is, indeed, nothing more than a temporary one. We'll probably not see the official / final user interface for another year or so. Dunno about that, as most of the problems I'm likely to point out are going to be UI related. I'd suggest that they pick up XPize and start incorporating some of those updates immediately. The icons need an overhaul, including file types that are registered with the same program (so that WMV files don't have the same icon as AVI files, etc.).