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

kmj2318 said:
Here's the two side by side. Helvetica's curves are very rounded, and similar for many different characters, too much consistency. SF has less consistency throughout the set to make the individual letters more identifiable. Also, Helvetica has very wide characters, so there's little space between them. SF has narrow characters, and can have a little more space between them even though the word is the same width. When the letters are stacked too close together it could be harder to read.

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Thanks for this, I was hoping for a direct comparison.
 
Imagining them replacing Myriad... I wonder if they will. I'm expecting it. All the branding and packaging for the watch uses SF, and it's obvious that things come first to the new things and them make their way to the rest of the products. It'd be a big step to change the company font though. The website changed the day Yosemite was revealed, so maybe the font on the website will change as everything else changes to SF.

Untitled1_zpso8twjeyi.gif
 
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Paradoxally said:
I hope this is true. Helvetica is a horrible font that should never have been used for operating systems' UI due to its poor readability. The Apple Watch font looks much nicer.
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Helvetica is fine, at least as far as sans-serif fonts go for any purpose (I agree that you'd probably not want to use it for a book). Apple's mistake was using the Ultralight weight, which looks sexy but sacrifices readability. Older versions of iOS also used Helvetica--they just used heavier weights that were easier to read, which is why nobody really complained.

I can't decide how I feel about Helvetica in OS X. Lucida Grande was fine, but I don't mind Helvetica since they appear to be using bold (for the app menu) and regular (for the rest of the menu bar and most of the UI) weights primarily. Supposedly it also looks better than Lucida Grande on a retina display, though I can't imagine either is bad.

I don't think I'd like San Francisco on a desktop, however. It is 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, though its light weights seem easier to read to me. (I think there might be a spacing issue with the screenshot posted earlier--I don't usually see SF's lowercase letters that far apart compared to Helvetica's, which I do think enhances SF's readability.)
 
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As long as one can read it easily I don't care. The font currently on IOS 8 is the best to date from my experience. (my poor failing eyes and all)

A selection of fonts would be the way to go though. And being able to make them bold and bigger currently has helped as well. :)
 
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kmj2318 said:
Imagining them replacing Myriad... I wonder if they will. I'm expecting it. All the branding and packaging for the watch uses SF, and it's obvious that things come first to the new things and them make their way to the rest of the products. It'd be a big step to change the company font though. The website changed the day Yosemite was revealed, so maybe the font on the website will change as everything else changes to SF.

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Font nerds are weird. I'm looking at the fonts switch back and forth in your post, and I'm thinking: Really?! People are upset at this tiny change? If I hadn't read this article I would never have noticed.
 
I like it.

I like Helvetica Neue as a font but I also miss Lucida Grande. It seems SF has better readability then HN but is more stylish then LG.

good to see a lot of the haters find their way to this thread with their pompous opinions and reviews :rolleyes:

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Treq said:
Font nerds are weird. I'm looking at the fonts switch back and forth in your post, and I'm thinking: Really?! People are upset at this tiny change? If I hadn't read this article I would never have noticed.
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it's a macrumors news thread, some people would still be upset if Apple released a time travel device.
 
DevNull0 said:
I was in a classroom in 2011 and I booted up my macbook in a room full of PC users. Someone commented how nice it was to hear the Apple chime and a few others joined in in agreement.

Part of what made Apple great was the consistent experience, the tech improved, the interface improved, but the look and feel stayed the same as much as possible without hurting innovation. The Macs had a refined feel and for decades, everyone associated that noise with their great apple experiences.

At the same time, MS would change all their sounds and the whole feel of the OS with each version so it was all just so much blah noise.

Now Apple wants to keep changing their look and feel over and over and over for the sake of change. Even getting rid of the white apple-pulse light just takes away from the premium Apple feel. If they have to change the font for some innovative reason, great…but when they keep changing it just so you always know you're on the NEW ONE, they destroy their own branding and they're just like MS.
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I couldn't agree more. I'm really disappointed at this news
 
It's a very nice font, but would certainly come as a shock to my system at first.

And I just had one of those shocks, going to Helvetica. I won't mind if this rumor is false. If true... give it time. We'll get used to it.

Change is painful. Also fun.
 
bmd0019 said:
Shoot me now. I hate that font. :mad: It looks to much like Android. What is happening to my Apple, that I love.
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I have always thought that Android font (Roboto) was awesome and better designed for modern devices. I'm happy Apple is catching up. I like both iOS and Android (since 4.0).
 
class77 said:
Why doesn't Apple start over with 11.0 instead of 10.11? Sounds dumb
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Because OS X is a brand. I can't see how 10.11 sounds dumb (surely people can count past 10?), but it would be dumber to change the major version number for no reason.

--Eric
 
bmd0019 said:
Shoot me now. I hate that font. :mad: It looks to much like Android. What is happening to my Apple, that I love.
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This is weird, to me, do people actually associate a font with an OS? The font is about the last thing I'd look at after hardware/software design, apps, etc.
 
New font may be helpful for easier readability. Let's see what it look like on the new iOS and MacOS systems.
 
Ries said:
I hope they give the flat design a major overhaul. It just idiotic to have labels and button look 100% identical... Theres a screen shot somewhere, were a apple app had a label and button saying the same and looking identical...
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Wait. . what? The labels and buttons are not identical. The text buttons are blue (or whatever color the developers decide.)
 
kmj2318 said:
Imagining them replacing Myriad... I wonder if they will. I'm expecting it. All the branding and packaging for the watch uses SF, and it's obvious that things come first to the new things and them make their way to the rest of the products. It'd be a big step to change the company font though. The website changed the day Yosemite was revealed, so maybe the font on the website will change as everything else changes to SF.

Image
Click to expand...

Ugh. No thanks. The current font is much more elegant.
 
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