Interesting article in Co. Design about the pretty darn slick Metro interface in Windows Phones:

At this point, John Hipsher, a PR rep for Windows Phone, piped in. “It’s unbelievably collegial,” Hipsher says, describing the collaborative atmosphere. “For instance, the Xbox team sees a good idea like Metro, and they adapt it to Xbox.”

So there’s not someone at Microsoft saying we should unite all these products around Metro tiles?

“No,” says Belfiore [who oversees software design for Windows Phone].

What if Xbox said it didn’t want to use Metro tiles?

“Then they would not have tiles,” Belfiore says. “Microsoft doesn’t work that way…”

And there you see huge difference #578 between Microsoft & Apple. Can anyone imagine that flying at Apple?