iTunes updated to look more like... WMP?

I so called it! I mean, not on the internet anywhere, but in conversations with friends and family I did.

Seriously, prior to WWDC 2006 I predicted two changes to the look of Apple products. I thought they would both happen at the WWDC, but I suppose a consumer event is more appropriate.

The first is the re-introduction of color into Apple's product line. The launch of the iPod nano a year ago marked the end of all color in Apple's hardware. All of their products were composed entirely of white, black, gray, and silver. Now, there's nothing wrong with that; certainly products that have a grayscale color scheme will look good in almost any minimalist, contemporary interior, but it's a bit boring to not have the variety that color brings. Personally, I was hoping for a Mac mini color at the time, but whatever works.

The second is a movement away from glass in their user interfaces. It seemed like a likely direction to me simply to set a countertrend to the heavy emphasis on glass in Vista. Apple has had glass in their UI since the launch of OS X, so what better time to move away from it than just as Microsoft is massively adopting it system-wide? Just compare iTunes 6 to iTunes 7. All glass in the main window of iTunes 7 has gone away, down to the scrollbars. I heavily suspect that the standard Aqua widgets in the final release of Leopard will have most traces of glass stripped away.