Apple to Use 'San Francisco' Apple Watch Font in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11

[grahamperrin]

… Helvetica Neue followed by the 10.11 version of San Francisco. …

Thanks.

It appears that the face in 10.11 is more lightweight than the face in Yosemite. (Viewing the screenshots, not the OS, on a 17" MacBookPro5,2.)

… I wouldn't be surprised if Apple is still assessing the look and feel of iOS and OS X.

…

Recalling comments from a few months and a few weeks ago, I'm inclined to view the entire Yosemite phase, including all 10.10.x releases to come, as one long beta.

I'll probably extend that thought to treat releases of 10.11 as part of a longer multi-version beta, which began with 10.10.

 

[JacquesleMac]

I agree that the difference is slight, but to my eye the slight elongation and greater openness of San Francisco makes it more attractive – but then I reckon SF and HN are both beautiful.

I’m running standard and retina iMacs side-by-side: it will be interesting to see how the new font works.

UPDATE/VOLTE FACE: I installed the version of San Francisco available at iphonehacks (link here) and quickly found it awkward and tiring to use. Hopefully this version is poor imitation of the real thing (the kerning is wrong for starters).

 

[grahamperrin]

…

> some Apple engineers have told us that they are
> not fans of the new font …

 

[tkermit]

I installed the version of San Francisco available at iphonehacks (link here) and quickly found it awkward and tiring to use. Hopefully this version is poor imitation of the real thing (the kerning is wrong for starters).

What's available to download at that site is probably the font family used on the Watch that's now been renamed to SF Compact, whereas iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan use SF which albeit related has been newly created. The main difference being that SF Compact uses round shapes that have been slightly flattened for increased space between individual letters and thus better legibility at smaller font sizes. You can hear all about it in Apple's publicly available WWDC talk.

 

[JacquesleMac]

What's available to download at that site is probably the font family used on the Watch that's now been renamed to SF Compact, whereas iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan use SF which albeit related has been newly created. .

I hope so, because it was actually uncomfortable to use. And that’s speaking as someone who really likes the font in the examples I’ve seen. But installed from this source (which does claim to be the real thing) it did my head in...

 

[impulse462]

Aesthetically I prefer the left, but my typographic head says the right is that bit more legible.

This sums up my feelings exactly. Still I don't particularly like 10.11's font.

 

[grahamperrin]

Here's what it looks like

Am I the only person who finds the tail of the uppercase Q peculiar?

I already run this font on Yosemite. ...

we really all should reserve firm judgement until we actually use it for at least a couple minutes.

I tried it for a while on Mavericks, a day or so ago, then disabled it.

For OS X though, I will always keep Lucida Grande as my font of choice. It is readable and a symbol of the operating system.

+1

"Consistent UI" doesn't mean "use the same font on the watch and desktop"

Yes it does.

My desktop feels real smooth on my wrist. I can swipe seamlessly from one device to another. Whilst pretending to wear a Burberry raincoat and feigning disinterest in subordinates.

Non-Retina??

Even Apple's own engineers say this font looks rough on a non-retina screen. How are people missing this?

There's an assumption that everyone will, eventually, forget Apple's mistakes.

Take it to the extreme, and you end up with ...

 

[SmOgER]

…

Recalling comments from a few months and a few weeks ago, I'm inclined to view the entire Yosemite phase, including all 10.10.x releases to come, as one long beta.

I'll probably extend that thought to treat releases of 10.11 as part of a longer multi-version beta, which began with 10.10.

I agree with first but not second statement. With the 10.10.4 beta which came just before the El Capitan, it felt like they finally put all the dots on i and made everything smooth so it could actually be called a true stable release. Dunno what's actually under the hood, but it felt like there were resource eating unnecessary debugging tools enabled (actually anything which helps debugging or the problems which can't be fixed without hurting the future debugging) all the way till 10.10.4. now they've finally released a finished Yosemite build and once more back to debugging with El Capitan builds.

 

[AlecZ]

View attachment 561627

My man! BTW, I love Debian, but I don't think iOS should be like it

 

[WardC]

Again, nothing looked Classier than the original Apple Garamond. Truly classy font:

And Branding on All Apple Products:

 

[WardC]

BeOS had some nice system fonts as well:

This looks alot like the Espi Sans that was included with ~Aaron, the Copland-esque emulator. Apple used some variant of this in Mac OS 8

 

[lowendlinux]

View attachment 561627

That's just icky, ugly, bloated, swoopy, and unusable Gnome though

 

[Rabbitly]

What’s New in Apple WatchOS 2.0 and Should You Update?
http://www.springbox.com/news/whats-new-in-apple-watchos-2-0-and-should-you-update/

 

[ErikGrim]

Really hope Apple turns on monospaced numbers for the Safari download sheet.

 

[grahamperrin]

The future

From Welcome to San Francisco under First look: OS X El Capitan brings a little Snow Leopard to Yosemite | Ars Technica (2015-06-15):

Zooming in on San Francisco on a non-Retina display. The typeface is just a tiny bit lighter, but there's a little more neutral space between characters. This helps somewhat with readability.

Flashback

From OS X 10.9.5 (2014-09-07):

Zooming in on Lucida Grande on a non-Retina display. The typeface is just good for Macs. More than somewhat helpful with readability; one might say "legible". Or "Of an era when zooming in for accessibility was less often a requirement. When Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for the operating system were more about the human, than about swiping seamlessly from one class of device to another with a wristwatch in the mix …".

… Cursing the loss of Lucida Grande though on Mac OS X since Yosemite. The font was great.

… I still prefer Lucida Grande, however I think that San Francisco is nicer than Helvetica Neue. …

… For OS X … I will always keep Lucida Grande as my font of choice. It is readable and a symbol of the operating system.

… I don't think I'd like San Francisco on a desktop … a little condensed because it was designed for a small screen, and I don't think it scales up quite as beautifully as the other two fonts …

… not a fan of Lucida Grande …

Elegance

… Still disappointed.

… subtle variations become more noticeable when you see a larger block of text. A change to the default OS system font is a pretty big deal because it's so ubiquitous. It changes the reading experience, and the overall feel and character of the OS… … on a grand scale.

When I started seeing the first screenshots of the Apple Watch, I thought the typography lacked elegance. It looked clunky to me. And it still does. It has replaced the round curves of Lucida Grande …

That doesn’t make it flow horizontally (the direction you read), so I disagree with the claim that it’s a marvel of readability. … look more squashed … compensate for this by increasing the default letter spacing. But overall it just looks inelegant and, I have to say, a little amateurish. (I appreciate that this is my subjective opinion.)

Apple’s decision to switch from Lucida Grande to Helvetica Neue in OS X was heavily criticised … there might have been better choices. I just don’t think this new typeface is it.