I just hope that they can keep the contrast and the explicit visual of what a component does. Case in point: fire up letterpress on the ipad, get a gamecenter popover with its felt and wood finish, you can clearly identify what is supposed to happen (aside from copy[if you've used gamecenter before]).
To me it's one of the worst designs on the iPad. The buttons are way too tiny, they are arranged differently for every game, and each game seems to compete for the least intuitive layout and labeling.
Yeah why not? The metaphor works/I cant think of a better one. One thing that I like about some of Apple's approach to things is that the user explicitly enters a mode or changes frame of action. There is a mode the user enters when moving around ios icons/making folders, there is a mode when editing content that appeared to be static at one point. The faux leather/fake realism helps make that switch. If the Xbox os looks just like Metro, how does the user know when things are different?
Yes, well, I'm all for having a popup and for having it stand out in terms of design. I just say that the GameCenter-Popups is a very poor design, especially by apple standards.
In other words: The metaphor is fine but the execution is lacking.
