The glassy Dock appearance introduced 5 years ago in Leopard has finally been retired. In its place is a very handsome semi-gloss metal finish. The blurred reflections of windows and icons appear on its surface. Though the competing vanishing points and edge treatments of the Dock and the icons that sit upon it still make for a somewhat incongruous visual design, this is still the best the 3D Dock has ever looked.
I don’t agree with his statement about the design being incongruous, but I definitely agree that this is the best the 3D Dock has ever looked. In previous incarnations of the 3D Dock, I always thought it was a cool look and idea, but wound up hacking the preference file to make it flat again because all the sheen and reflections were too distracting. This version of the 3D dock is very nice looking and has not been distracting or irritating to me thus far. I may not need to hack the preference file.