This is blowing one element of design way out of proportion. I'm not a huge fan of brown leather, but to me, iCal is much easier to look at and functionally clear than Google Calendar, and part of this has to do with the use of texture.
When I open iCal (in the cloud or desktop), my focus rests naturally on the actual calendar because the texturing puts all the settings in the background. I like that the calendar itself is elegantly centered on the screen. I like that it has only settings I'm likely to use and that menus I use less the calendar selection column) are completely out of the way.
I don't have any problem using Google Calendar, but it's flatness annoys me. The calendar is lumped into the bottom of the screen, which is kind of an odd de-emphasis of the most used element of the app. The banner and many controls I don't use all the time have the same dark hue as the current week. Search is disproportionately (for my calendar usage, anyway) prioritized in terms of screen space. The whole left column (with the garish "create" button and a mini calendar) is basically useless.
Yeah, Apple needs to go easy on the leather (surely something could be more consonant with that silk texture), but ultimately Google has a lot more to learn from iCal than vice versa. And I think iCal actually shows, albeit imperfectly, that texture does have its place.
When I open iCal (in the cloud or desktop), my focus rests naturally on the actual calendar because the texturing puts all the settings in the background. I like that the calendar itself is elegantly centered on the screen. I like that it has only settings I'm likely to use and that menus I use less the calendar selection column) are completely out of the way.
I don't have any problem using Google Calendar, but it's flatness annoys me. The calendar is lumped into the bottom of the screen, which is kind of an odd de-emphasis of the most used element of the app. The banner and many controls I don't use all the time have the same dark hue as the current week. Search is disproportionately (for my calendar usage, anyway) prioritized in terms of screen space. The whole left column (with the garish "create" button and a mini calendar) is basically useless.
Yeah, Apple needs to go easy on the leather (surely something could be more consonant with that silk texture), but ultimately Google has a lot more to learn from iCal than vice versa. And I think iCal actually shows, albeit imperfectly, that texture does have its place.