For instance, the buttons placement seems to be a usability move. They haven’t fully justified why they’ve done it, but the assumption is that once you get used to it, it’s convenient to have them there.

I do believe there is something to be said about it just looking bad. Without considering the whole space and surrounding elements, the change just looks bad.

Some people are very happy to sacrifice usability for something that just looks sexy. This is where Apple has found a great balance and can be confident in their decisions.

The same goes with the weirdly placed notifications, how they sometimes appear 1-inch below the notification area. It’s supposed to be more ‘functional’ or ‘usable’, but it just looks broken.

I do hope the Canonical design team get there though, and you’re right, bold-ness and pushing boundaries is important.

“But I’m put ting my money on the fact that nothing will be done regar­ding this. Why? If Ubuntu copy the OS X theme, they must really like Apple, right? The sec ret announ ce ment of the new theme that came in the last day of the UI freeze and all that was also something very Apple-ish. Well then, just like Apple, they won’t lis ten to what the users want and will do things their way. The only dif fe rence is Ubuntu was sup po sed to be open. But I really hope I’m wrong!”

Like it or not the art team has done a great job in re-branding Ubuntu. However as has been pointed out numerous times in the past week, someone should have run by QA or even better the community that is expected to use this new theme.