This month, Oracle released the long-awaited APEX 5.0. Joel Kallman (Director of Software Development for Oracle APEX) writes on his blog that he does not want another release to ever take 2.5 years and promises that the APEX team will aim for a yearly release cycle.
In a way, the fact that it took so long for APEX to get to 5.0 is a logical consequence of the fact that APEX has grown up.Now explictly targeting the "citizen developer" and not just PL/SQL-capable database enthusiasts, APEX needed a makeover - and have gotten it.
If you are working with APEX and not using 5.0, you should immediately upgrade - for the attractive new UI, the new components and especially for the new page designer.
I work with both APEX and Jdeveloper, and with version 5.0, APEX finally feels like a real IDE and not just a series of web pages. Check it out: apex.oracle.com.