I’ve just downloaded a local copy of the brand spanking new WordPress 3.2beta1 – and let me be the first to say… it’s gorgeous.

Simplicity is the motto here, and the UI design team has done an outstanding job in streamlining a lot of the elements down.  I mean, take a look at this new interface:

Everything looks… clean.  Lots of clean lines, clean divisions; the blue color scheme will follow soon, but for now the monochrome one looks downright beautiful.

And that’s not all – they’ve added a brand new ground-built full screen editor:

Now you can edit both HTML and Visually without any of the distractions of tags, categories, etc; perfect for people (like me) who like to do other stuff while writing posts (also like me).

Oh… and there’s also Twenty Eleven:

BAZINGA!

From the official site:

Here’s some of what’s new:

• Performance improvements like you wouldn’t believe. What’s that mean? Things are faster!
• Distraction-free Writing. The visual editor’s full-screen composing experience has gotten a major overhaul, and is now available from HTML mode, too. More than ever, WordPress allows you to focus on what matters most — your content.
• Admin UI Refresh. The last major redesign of the WordPress admin was in 2008. This isn’t a major redesign, just a little facelift to keep us feeling young. WordPress turns 8 later this month, you know.
• New Default Theme. Introducing Twenty Eleven, based on the popular Duster theme. Rotating header images, post format support, and more.
• Browse Happy. WordPress is made to work with modern browsers. If you visit your Dashboard using an outdated web browser, we’ll let you know there’s a newer version available.
• Admin Bar. We’ve added more links to the admin bar to make it even more useful.

Be Aware:

• WordPress has new system requirements: PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.
• Internet Explorer 6 will no longer be supported.
• The favorites menu has been removed. If you’ve written any plugins that use this menu, it’s time to switch over to an admin bar placement.

Known Issues:

• We haven’t updated the blue admin color scheme yet, so do your testing in the gray zone for best results.