TUAW: Honestly, I’m trying to get past that old “they’re ripping Apple off!” complaint, but then stuff like this shows up and just gets my blood boiling again. You’re looking at the recently unveiled interface of Microsoft’s forthcoming Office 12. […] In my opinion: sad.

Yes, you’re right it’s sad. Sad that you can take one screenshot completely out of context, pile on your own spin and call it a story.

So very very sad. The whole whining bit about “looks like brushed metal” in the UI? Dead issue. Notice the lack of the Glass theme that Vista has been promoting? That means that this is a pre-build to a pre-build: that means that this color scheme – that has gotten your panties in a bunch – probably won’t even be going out the door to the public. Just a default set of colors for the CTP demo at the PDC. But whatever.

The gripe over the button? If you took the time to watch the PDC keynote, you’d know that this is one tab out of a bunch… for example, in the Excel demo, the Table tab was orange. And since when does Apple UI designers own color selection for applications? Should Windows UI designers be pissed that there’s a clock on the right of the Apple OS-X menu, much like there’s a clock in the XP task bar, because it uses a *gasp* specific font?!

And nice that you’ve completely skipped the concept of the new Office tabs themselves… how it’s looking like having a menu and toolbar replacement for Office 12 should be a big boost to productivity… and frankly, kick the crap out of what Apple has put together for the menu/toolbar for Mail or Keynote or Pages… Oh wait, that’s right – I’m sure the next releases of all of those application will include a similar approach to a “new” UI… and then the AppleHeads will call it “innovative” or “progressive” rather than a hacked up copy job of what they saw in these demos.

Meanwhile, just because a color scheme is similar, you’re blood is boiling.

Lame. Just lame. And sad.

On that, we can agree: it’s sad.