Monk opens up his post with the following:
Microsoft can create user interfaces as delightful and beautiful as Apple's, they just needed to be provoked. Apple have poked the sleeping bear, and after a yawn and a stretch, said bear has eagerly devoured some talented UI/UX designers and has evolved into some odd half-bear, half-Dieter-Rams-alike-minimal-loving monster. Sort of like how Pokémon do.
Metro is beautiful. I'll say it a thousand times in this piece no doubt, but it is. What it isn't is an iOS pretender. Microsoft have actually crafted a mobile operating from the outset that shares few similarities with its peers. In one release, they've made Android look like some tacky fifty-quid knockoff imitation of iOS you see on blogs.
But what's really amazing is that not only is Metro as good as iOS in almost every respect, but in some ways it's far, far ahead.
A well balanced post, and as many of us expected, once someone gives Windows Phone a straight bat and an open hearing, they find a lot to like about the OS. And once again, the call goes out to get the killer apps into the Marketplace.