Part of it was they wanted to make the tasks and contacts more prominent. The contacts section was changed, in part, to account for things they had added to android. (Specifically the ability to add multiple arbritrary phone numbers.(
well, I am no expert in usability, but I can tell that the new design is not intuitive to me as much as the original design, leave alone improvement..
I am really wondering what was the motive of the designer to put on the top something so sparingly used like Tasks, Contact! Any views?