[mellifluousmind]

One little thing I should point out about the UI design is that there is a fine balance & trade off between visual effects and performance. Often times, it is also quite subjective.

Take Vista and Windows 7 for example, you see the aero Window edge is roundish (especially top two corners). Now take look at Windows 8, as it is pretty edge, not round at all. Do you know why? It is really because Windows team used at least 5 rectangles, all stacked together to form that roundness for Vista & 7. That means it is more GPU cycle time to draw these duplicated rectangles to give such pretty illusion. With Windows 8, I do welcome the edge/sharp corners, feel more clean and snappy.

[protomyth]

I guess Apple had a little different technique http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...

[cududa]

It has nothing to do with the perf issues. They're drawing way more elements with Metro now, anyway.

[tadfisher]

I love this. For years, engineers struggled to get designers what they asked for, often with substandard and inefficient results -- see the many hacks required for cross-browser rounded corners, for example. Now that support for such niceties is in full swing, everybody and their mom are using them, and it becomes faux pas.

[RegEx]

I read a great comment on an article once that described this exact idea in regards to CSS3. The gist of the comment was "By the time the browsers implement the trendy design elements of today, the trends will have already passed."

Then again, I'm a developer, not a designer...maybe these trends (such as the apple-esque image reflection with a fade) will actually stick around long enough to be useful in the CSS3 spec.