The votes are in, and we have to say, there really doesn't seem to be a cohesive community opinion on whether or not the Power Mac G5 qualifies as "attractive." We got a whole lotta mail telling us it's the most beautiful Mac Apple has ever made, and even more mail telling us it's the ugliest Mac on record-- but we can't even say that the G5's look is polarizing Mac users into one of two camps, because we're also getting a buncha mail from people saying "eh," or, in faithful viewer Timo Reger's case, "meh." The best we can say is, you either like it or you don't, except if you don't really care one way or the other. Now that's definitive, baby!

Guess we'll just have to wait and see how many awards it rakes in. That's not likely to start until Apple actually manages to ship the thing, however, so in the meantime we're going to have to be content watching Apple's other products score some more design accolades. Hot on the heels of Jonathan Ive's recent Designer of the Year award comes word that two of his Apple creations have garnered Industrial Design Excellence Awards, which honor those products that "use design to push traditional brands into new markets, extend well-known brands into new products, and invent something totally new, cool, and useful." (You've heard this all before.)

So what won? Well, in the "Computer Equipment" category, the 12- and 17-inch PowerBook G4s together snagged a Gold award. (Interestingly enough, the only other Gold award went to the Palm Zire-- which is sort of an award for Apple, too, since we've always thought it was obvious that the Zire's industrial design was "borrowed" from the iBook.) Meanwhile, the Xserve managed to land a Silver, alongside the SanDisk Cruzer USB flash storage device and the SAMSUNG SyncMaster 152T LCD display. And it looks to us like Apple's the only company who won more than one IDEA this year. Congratulations, folks!

Of course, the fact that even (shudder) Gateway managed to limp away with a Bronze sort of cheapens the deal a little, but hey, at least it won primarily by copying design elements of the Power Mac G4: "a flip-up door for easy service and upgrade access" and "high-contrast silver and charcoal" for the new color scheme. And since IDEA awards seem to focus on functional design more than looks, we'd feel pretty comfortable betting on a Gold for the G5 next year, no matter how the judges might think it looks. Any takers?