[MW Forums]

BuyIcons.com has released Mail Fixer 1.0, a free utility that allows you to change the appearance of Apple Mail 2.0, the version of Apple’s e-mail client software included with Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger.” The utility includes one theme, called “Sunken Aqua,” which provides Mail with an appearance similar to Safari and Finder. The theme formats used by Mail Fixer can be modified or created by anyone, according to the developer. more

[tallscot]

The only problem I have with Mail 2.0 is with the buttons.
One has to wonder what's going on with Apple's user interface design team. How many different user interfaces do we have now, four?
Aqua
Brushed metal
Pro apps
New platinum in Spotlight and Mail
Apple's strength over Microsoft has always been consistency, IMHO. OS X is getting less and less consistent. They aren't even following their own Human Interface Guidelines.
The Mail 2.0 buttons is the latest example.
OS X buttons are suppose to be outlines and each button is suppose to have a differentiating shape, according to Apple's own guidelines. The Applications icon is a letter A, for example. If you look at the icons in silhouette (black and white, 1 bit), you can still easily identify the buttons.
Mail makes those icons smaller and puts all of them into the same oval/button shape. Having used Mail 2.0 since the 29th, I can honestly say that I can tell the difference between the two. It's obviously harder to identify the Mail 2.0 buttons.
Interestingly, Safari also goes against this HIG and puts icons inside button shapes, but the icons are silhouettes instead of color, so I think they are easier to identify. I think there may be less bevel to them too?
So use the Finder with a toolbar, then use Safari, then use Mail 2.0, then use Final Cut Pro/DVD SP/Motion, and you get four different user interfaces with different icons for the same functions. That's very Windows-like.
I always hated how I had different open/save and print dialogs in Windows depending on which application I was using (Office even has different menus). The strength of the Mac OS was always that you could learn something once and then apply it to every application or situation. That's not the case anymore. I now have different print dialogs and different open/save dialogs.
Come on Apple, pick one and run with it, or at the very least, give us an easy way to select which one we want. I still don't have a clue why Apple hates to give us the ability to natively change these themes.
Oh, and while I'm at it (again), Apple, please use your own Dock feature and put status bars in your own applications! When Compressor is rendering, why not put a little bar in the Dock icon to let me know the status? I mean, that was a feature you guys advertised when OS X debuted. Why not use it?

[jmincey]

Do you really think any user of Apple Mail 2 will be confused as to whether an icon labeled "Get Mail" and which changes background shade upon a mouse-over is actually a clickable button which initiates a function?

[tallscot]

No, I don't think that at all, nor did I mention that in my post.