Reflections: 10 Things I Hate About You

No, this isn't a post with my deep insights into an vapid teen show. It isn't even a post about how cheap I am to be looking for free shows on iTunes. What this is a post about is how awful fake lighting has ruined too many things. I blame Apple for starting it with their lickable interface, eventually resulting in this terrible result I saw last week:

Yes, what you see outlined in red is indeed one fake reflection that is again reflected by another fake reflection. Apparently ABC thought the effect was so cool that they slapped it on their own icons without giving any thought to how overused it is.

In yellow you'll see common examples of interface glare. I understand that it's a stylistic choice, but can we at least all agree that it's just a bit silly to add fake glare to a screen which we've probably put a significant effort into positioning so that it doesn't get washed out by real glare?

So until an OS supports genuine 3D widgets that properly ray trace user-defined light sources, let up a little on the fake stuff. I know I don't have a full 10 things outlined in this one picture that are deserving of hatred, so I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find at least 4 more. They need not even be in iTunes. What interface eye candy have you seen that is starting to look more like rot and decay?