Other than that I normally second the consistency argument (until a better one comes along…:-) )

This was all strange to hear from Apple, and a little hard to swallow. But there you go — Apple is actively pushing to reduce consistency, and to increase, as they told me “cinematic software experiences”.

Your example of interior design is a great way to illustrate this. The idea of “mood lighting” doesn’t always lead you to the most practical results in terms of visibility, but it does succeed in creating an experience. In a lot of cases, that’s what the developer is looking to do and that’s what the user reacts to.

Chris W’s comment above mentions that that Weather and Stocks are “unnecessarily” different (and you address these as immersive), but I think it’s a mistake to assume consumers want everything to be as uniform and structured as possible. In fact, that can lead to a very monotonous experience. It’s a delicate balancing act between chaos and stagnation.

I agree with you that developers often use UI conventions in contexts that don’t fit well, but that’s nothing new and will continue to be the case whenever they don’t have the the funds for or availability of a dedicated designer.

I can’t say I was disappointed: I didn’t like brushed metal much. But there was a pattern to it, it just seemed Apple didn’t understand what the pattern really was.

Certainly taste will play a role, and it can be done poorly, but I like the choice to stick with the same look and feel while only change colors as a point of differentiation better than the efforts some devs have made to completely attempt an alternate look and feel.

Camera, Calculator and HoldEm all fall under Apple’s definition of “Immersive Applications.” Weather and Stocks are clearly “Utility Applications”–Weather is even the exemplar in the iPhone HIG. In these apps, a navigation and/or tool bar tend to be infrequently used items, so it makes sense to prefer they match the overall look of the app.

I tend to think of Photos as a secondary aspect of Camera, so maybe it got more of a free pass than it deserves. I wouldn’t mind seeing it use the standard blue/gray scheme.

Voicemail…I knew there was something that used an oversized black toolbar but couldn’t find it while writing the article. I guess I can see arguing that it’s more of a “control panel” than “toolbar” and should thus justify a different mental context, but I think it would work just as well in blue.

Notes, Notes, Notes…that just feels too much like picking on someone who’s been picked on way too much already. Regardless of whether you like Marker Felt or not, it’s obvious Apple’s attitude toward Notes falls in the “Immersive Application” category even though it has hierarchical data organization. I don’t think many people would agree that’s the correct decision, but you have to admit they didn’t commit to it only halfway :^) I think most people would also agree that Notes wouldn’t be the Apple application to emulate.

Of course, this all ends up falling into a “know it when I see it” definition without Apple being explicit. I was asked in regard to my original tweet what I preferred and started listing the apps…and was surprised at how uniform Apple was in making Productivity Applications use the blue/gray. I truly thought there was more diversity. Unfortunately, they seem to have used the main outlier (Photos) as the HIG example.