Apple is becoming very metallically oriented - this especially with the new G5s and the new OSX operating system, panther.
Wired notes the change of the apple logo to have a shiney metalic gloss:
http://www.wired.com/news/images/0,2334,60597-8954,00.html
You can also see there fairly clearly the more solid colors of the titlebars in OSX 10.3, dropping the lined look there (which I kind of liked and thought were always trademark of apple).
Plus you have the brushed metal movement with itunes, safari and now with finder. Good? Bad? Cant be all that good if theres already a petition against it:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?stopugly
Apparently Jobs has an affinity for aluminum.
Personally, I like the new apple. The brushed metal deal, however, I could live with out. It seems out of place to me. As one petitioner put it “Come on Apple, let’s face it: brushed metal was hip in 1998”
