"After Apple’s heavy-handed realism and Microsoft’s harsh minimalism, it’s nice to see that Google are also beginning to find their voice."

This seems very true with the Holo look on Android as well - Google is going very heavy with the 'roadsign' style (flat, colors for emphasis, icons convey meaning, text looks similar to government forms, etc). I'm guessing there is a design name for this type of look?

On the surface you might confuse the Metro style with Holo in that they both use similar design elements - but while Metro tries to go towards 'digital minimalism', Holo/iOS maps seems to go more towards 'paper minimalism', as used by official forms and the like.

Also as a note: Apple did originally use the vertical transition in a lot of their apps - it was part of the original iOS design guides, etc. You can use it easily in any app with the popup screen call.