Apple Adopts San Francisco Typeface for Apple.com Website

[Robert.Walter]

Two years after the fact?

Sometimes I think Apple needs a VP of consistency*.

* consider how there are three different conceptual layouts for accessing a device's settings depending on if iPhone, Mac or AppleTV.

I'm not saying that everything down to the last everything should be standardized (that's boring and stifling) but that there could be a much higher degree of this (leading to better user comfort across devices) than is currently the case.

 

[SgtPepper12]

It's ridiculous that SF is used as a interface font, but not available for anything else. At least now you can scrape the website for those fonts.

 

[macTW]

I really enjoy the San Francisco font. I didn't think I would at first, but eventually ended up looking for a windows 10 chrome add on to use that font on my other pc (but couldn't find one).

 

[Johnny London]

That was meant to be a joke. Here's the funny thing though: https://twitter.com/xiaotianxing/status/824036279079706624

Ah, sweet.

 

[Born Again]

Is Apple yelling at me?

 

[davester]

Many typefaces changes of late, and this is the worst. Atleast articulate with the use of different weights.
[doublepost=1485339397][/doublepost]

Ahhhhhh HA HA HA HA!!! It looks like something a first year graphic arts student would make and then watch it get thrown in the trash by the instructor. Could also be an iWeb site from 2007!!!! Oh my god its bad! Just look at the gap between the lines!!! Apple goes further and further into the abyss.

My sentiments exactly. I'd expect this appearance if someone had hacked Apple.com! No use of different weights. Hideous.
[doublepost=1485340946][/doublepost]Actually for a moment, I imagined I'd be seeing the reincarnation of the 1984 San Francisco bitmap don't!!

 

[Kabeyun]

The real question should be - why is this even a story worth covering? It's a freaking font.

Yeah, it's about as minutiae as it gets.

On the other hand, fontography is a huge part of Apple's DNA. After Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College he audited and studied calligraphy, and because of that he had a big focus on the Mac's typography. It was the first computer with proportional fonts, and writing apps had black "ink" on white "paper" instead of the lit text on a black screen everyone else was doing. At the time it was revolutionary for a typed "i" to have a shorter pitch than an "m," but typesetters, writers, and calligraphers have known it for centuries. Apple Garamond was instantly recognizable as their corporate font for years, on which the "Think Different" campaign was built, and was as representative of Apple Computers as the rainbow apple. I remember how their fonts took the name of cities (Chicago, New York) and San Francisco is part of that. (One of the goofier original bitmapped Mac fonts was also called San Francisco, btw.) On Macs it's still far easier to add symbols and diacriticals, using simple key combinations instead of Windows' maddening "Insert symbol" menu command. Meticulous attention to typography and fontography is, I think, one of the reasons Apple attracted creative professionals to their camp. Heck, there's a whole Wikipedia article on it.

So yeah, it is a tiny thing in the current grand scheme. But for Apple it's an important thing too and something a lot of people, especially devotees, notice.

I just think it's the pinnacle of asinine pettiness to use it as a springboard about all things Apple one whines about.

Edit: Reading that article, I learned another cool connection between Apple and fonts. The bite out of Apple's apple was originally designed to fit against the "a" of Apple in Motter Tektura typeface (also used by Reebok) and has looked that way ever since.

 

[Appleaker]

Congratulations, MR. You managed to go negative over a fri**in' font story. A font story! Ooh, let me have a go:

Almost as much spacing between those ugly letters as there is between Mac Mini updates!

Was that good?

Next up: Tim Cook saves a baby from a burning building. MR forums: Cook can take the time to save a baby but he can't even make a battery last all day. Wah!

Yeah... This isn't actually a negative story I like the change.

 

[5105973]

@Kabeyun That was very well stated! (The post about the place of fonts and typography in Apple's history).

Unfortunately the aesthetics are a bit jarring for me, but my 50 year old eyes do appreciate that the words stand out so well.

 

[satchmo]

It's simple.
The thicker SF font removes one of the true basics of design, contrast.

You achieve contrast through, size, weight or font style (i.e. sans vs serif).

The headline is oddly a touch larger than the subheads. This is probably because the font lacks enough difference between various weights.

 

[Fzang]

I have nothing against the font in general, but I find it too bold in most places. The thinner was... I don't know, classier in a way. Now it reads too much like a tabloid where every line is a headline.

 

[ikramerica]

They need San Francisco Narrow. The standard looks fine bolded (the headlines on the website are all bold) but strange not bold (see the minor links at the bottom). As others say, too much letter spacing.

 

[blacktape242]

San Fransisco font huh, I bet it smells like pee, just like most of the city.

 

[groovyd]

there is something intuitively wrong about the character kern and relative widths. it just looks wrong.

 

[Glassed Silver]

Wow, ya'll have some issues my mates.

I like to criticize Apple myself as I like them performing at their maximum, but this is needless nitpicking.

The change makes a whole lot of sense, even though I like the subtitle being gray instead of the same black as the title better, but that's a minor concern I feel.

The change is fine, get over yourselves people.

I'm sure the webdevs didn't have to cancel any important meetings over this.

Glassed Silver:ios

 

[Kabeyun]

Allow me to have a rare moment of negativity here, as a sometime typographer. San Francisco is a lovely UI typeface, but it does not work at all in large headlines. It lacks proper differentiating weights and looks especially bad on the Mac Book Pro headline.

There was a reason why up until now Apple had separate typefaces for user interface and other media. You never saw a print ad set in Chicago or Charcoal. You never had UI elements set in Apple Garamond. Yes, those were specifically design and set for low vs high resolutions, but even with retina screens today typefaces made for user interfaces still look awkward and "cheap" when displayed at headline sizes.

This kind of criticism is very fair. On-issue, thoughtful, and based on experience or expertise. I kind of agree that it's kind of flat, and absolutely agree a single font shouldn't try to serve all functions.

 

[0098386]

Allow me to have a rare moment of negativity here, as a sometime typographer. San Francisco is a lovely UI typeface, but it does not work at all in large headlines. It lacks proper differentiating weights and looks especially bad on the Mac Book Pro headline.

There was a reason why up until now Apple had separate typefaces for user interface and other media. You never saw a print ad set in Chicago or Charcoal. You never had UI elements set in Apple Garamond. Yes, those were specifically design and set for low vs high resolutions, but even with retina screens today typefaces made for user interfaces still look awkward and "cheap" when displayed at headline sizes.

Oh gosh, you're right. It looks horrible as a headline.

 

[KALLT]

there is something intuitively wrong about the character kern and relative widths. it just looks wrong.

Something definitely looks weird. Have they used a different cut for the website? Reading the body text on pages like these feels oddly uncomfortable to me.

 

[tech4all]

You're following the wrong company if you don't see design as extremely important.

Yea ok...

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Yea ok...

How long does the battery last how long does it take to charge? Assuming it was deliberately designed this way, one must wonder why? A few reasons: so no users can ever mistake it for a wired mouse and think when they "plug in their mouse" that it's only charging and need required permanently. The other reason if so during the other hours in that 3-4 month period where it's not being charged (as opposed to the 2 charging hours) it is seamless the whole way around, with ports of holes or marks. Eventually it'll be charged wireless to enable this seemless look, but for the next few years to get this look they can stick the port on the button.

It's like people pointing to an image of an Apple Pencil sticking out the side of an iPad and failing to mention that mere seconds charges the stylus for over an hour, that it's for when user run out on-the-go, and that the Pencil also ships with a Lighting charger. But then that is the middle school mentality around here.

 

[tech4all]

How long does the battery last how long does it take to charge? Assuming it was deliberately designed this way, one must wonder why? A few reasons: so no users can ever mistake it for a wired mouse and think when they "plug in their mouse" that it's only charging and need required permanently. The other reason if so during the other hours in that 3-4 month period where it's not being charged (as opposed to the 2 charging hours) it is seamless the whole way around, with ports of holes or marks. Eventually it'll be charged wireless to enable this seemless look, but for the next few years to get this look they can stick the port on the button.

It's like people pointing to an image of an Apple Pencil sticking out the side of an iPad and failing to mention that mere seconds charges the stylus for over an hour, that it's for when user run out on-the-go, and that the Pencil also ships with a Lighting charger. But then that is the middle school mentality around here.

It's a lazy design no matter how you spin it. Other mice have the USB port on the front so you can use it while it's charging even though you can have a half or a full day charge in 5 minutes. If others can do it, then Apple could. They just used minimal effort.

People always talk about how it only takes a few minutes to get a charge for a day or so. That's not the point.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

It's a lazy design no matter how you spin it. Other mice have the USB port on the front so you can use it while it's charging even though you can have a half or a full day charge in 5 minutes. If others can do it, then Apple could. They just used minimal effort.

People always talk about how it only takes a few minutes to get a charge for a day or so. That's not the point.

You're the one missing the point. They wanted a mouse without any visible blismishes. Only way to achieve that without the mouse costing twice as much. It's a design choice. You think it's a bad choice and that's fine. Apple make opinioned design, just as you make opinioned comments.

 

[tech4all]

You're the one missing the point. They wanted a mouse without any visible blismishes. Only way to achieve that without the mouse costing twice as much. It's a design choice. You think it's a bad choice and that's fine. Apple make opinioned design, just as you make opinioned comments.

Apple could have designed a mouse with a USB port on the front and still have it look nice and not have any "blemishes." This is Apple we're talking about. They've always have had great design; both in graphic design/fonts (see video below at 0:27. I'm sure you've seen the video) and industrial design. They got just lazy and settled for this form over function.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[A MacBook lover]

It's a lazy design no matter how you spin it. Other mice have the USB port on the front so you can use it while it's charging even though you can have a half or a full day charge in 5 minutes. If others can do it, then Apple could. They just used minimal effort.

People always talk about how it only takes a few minutes to get a charge for a day or so. That's not the point.

It's not lazy, it's great design no matter how you spin it.

 

[itsamacthing]

Because typeface designers and Apple.com engineers are responsible for Mac hardware? You guys have a pretty poor sense of resource allocation. Developing the new MacBook Pro hardware, built-in apps designed for Touch Bar, the Touch Bar human interface guidelines, and TouchBar software frameworks required SIGNIFICANT software and hardware engineering investment. Implementing a new typeface on Apple.com does not.

Cue the 1000th joke about emojis. News flash, Apple isn't responsible for emoji. That would be Unicode. Platform vendors simply interpret Unicodes definitions into icons when Unicode releases a new set of emoji, and then implement into the platform. Apple usually isn't even first to implement. Even though they should be trying to be on par with everyone else, so that Unicode characters can be viewed universally across platforms (hence the name Unicode).

But let's continue to mock Apple over something so childish. This website used to have legitimately insightful criticisms and debates around Apple. it's still here, but it gets drowned out by nothing but immature nonsense. I guess MR has become a victim of their own (and Apples) success.

Or Apple is in such sad shape there isn't enough to discuss any longer.. it's a fashion company now.. we are IT fans
[doublepost=1485413039][/doublepost]

Congratulations, MR. You managed to go negative over a fri**in' font story. A font story! Ooh, let me have a go:

Almost as much spacing between those ugly letters as there is between Mac Mini updates!

Was that good?

Next up: Tim Cook saves a baby from a burning building. MR forums: Cook can take the time to save a baby but he can't even make a battery last all day. Wah!

Consider myself a cup half full person, but Apple has so many areas going wrong these days that it has become difficult to overlook small things.. it's just one "huh" after the next.