Rule 0 of UI design: When Microsoft does it, it's garish and tasteless. When Apple does it, it's mostly well thought through and carefully applied.

This is a tired meme.

Apple's use of translucent elements was not well received when they first did it (and I'm not certain it is highly regarded now, either):

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/06/19/ntmb http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/11/09/translucent

Or: Execution is everything.