Apple's Beats brand in April unveiled the Powerbeats Pro, a redesigned wire-free version of its popular fitness-oriented Powerbeats earbuds.
Apple to Use 'San Francisco' Apple Watch Font in iOS 9 and OS X 10.11
Though iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 are set to debut in three weeks at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, we've heard little detail on the content Apple might include in the new operating system updates. Neither operating system is expected to get a major visual overhaul, but there may be one significant design change for both iOS and OS X -- a new system font.
Apple has plans to use the new San Francisco font that was introduced with the Apple Watch to replace the Helvetica Neue font used in iOS 7/iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, according to a report from 9to5Mac. The font will be used for menu items, app names, and more, throughout the operating systems.
Chicago, New York, Geneva, Monaco, and Cairo are all fonts that were designed by early Apple graphic artist Susan Kare. Kare even designed her own font called San Francisco in 1984, but that now-obsolete typeface looked quite different than the San Francisco Apple introduced in 2014.
San Francisco was created specifically for small displays like the Apple Watch, with extra spacing between each letter to increase legibility on the wrist. Since its debut, there has been speculation that it could be brought to iPhones and Macs in the future, due to its clean look on larger Retina displays in addition to the small display of the Apple Watch. That idea was further reinforced with the introduction of the Retina MacBook, which uses the San Francisco font for the lettering on the keyboard.
We may get our first official glimpse of San Francisco as a system-wide iOS and OS X font on June 8, when Apple is expected to show off iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 for the first time. Not much else is known about the two operating systems, but Apple may be opting to focus more on internal upgrades, improvements, and bug fixes over external changes to further polish features introduced with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.
Apple has plans to use the new San Francisco font that was introduced with the Apple Watch to replace the Helvetica Neue font used in iOS 7/iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, according to a report from 9to5Mac. The font will be used for menu items, app names, and more, throughout the operating systems.
Ever since switching to particularly thin weights of Helvetica Neue in iOS 7, Apple has been chastised for using a font that emphasizes clean lines over readability, and San Francisco is intended to solve this. According to the sources familiar with the decision to move to the San Francisco type face on iOS and OS X, Apple higher-ups also believe that the new look will serve to refresh its familiar operating systems, helping iOS and OS X to avoid becoming stale. However, some Apple engineers have told us that they are not fans of the new font, which may look particularly rough on non-Retina screens.A condensed sans-serif that's not unlike Helvetica, San Francisco is the first new font Apple has designed in-house in many years. In the 80s and 90s, Apple used several fonts that were created in-house, but the company largely ceased making its own fonts in the early 1990s. Apple's early fonts were also named after major cities, so San Francisco pays homage to those first fonts.
Chicago, New York, Geneva, Monaco, and Cairo are all fonts that were designed by early Apple graphic artist Susan Kare. Kare even designed her own font called San Francisco in 1984, but that now-obsolete typeface looked quite different than the San Francisco Apple introduced in 2014.
San Francisco was created specifically for small displays like the Apple Watch, with extra spacing between each letter to increase legibility on the wrist. Since its debut, there has been speculation that it could be brought to iPhones and Macs in the future, due to its clean look on larger Retina displays in addition to the small display of the Apple Watch. That idea was further reinforced with the introduction of the Retina MacBook, which uses the San Francisco font for the lettering on the keyboard.
We may get our first official glimpse of San Francisco as a system-wide iOS and OS X font on June 8, when Apple is expected to show off iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 for the first time. Not much else is known about the two operating systems, but Apple may be opting to focus more on internal upgrades, improvements, and bug fixes over external changes to further polish features introduced with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.
Tag: San Francisco
[ 289 comments ]
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
54 months ago
One thing I love on MacRumors is font debates and font rants by font-o-philes. Some of my favourite comments in the last 12 months were on helvetica neuve vs lucida grande. This is going to be an entertaining thread, cant wait.
54 months ago
Here's what it looks like in action.
Warning: If for any reason you decide that you want to replace the OS X System Font on your own please use caution to remove it before upgrading to OS X 10.11. Apple was quick to DMCA the Github repository that had the font because if the new font isn't removed as a system font when the user upgrades to 10.11, Apple's replacement font will not show up. Messing with system fonts is really nasty and can ruin your experience.
Warning: If for any reason you decide that you want to replace the OS X System Font on your own please use caution to remove it before upgrading to OS X 10.11. Apple was quick to DMCA the Github repository that had the font because if the new font isn't removed as a system font when the user upgrades to 10.11, Apple's replacement font will not show up. Messing with system fonts is really nasty and can ruin your experience.
54 months ago
No!!!
Shoot me now. I hate that font. :mad: It looks to much like Android. What is happening to my Apple, that I love.
Shoot me now. I hate that font. :mad: It looks to much like Android. What is happening to my Apple, that I love.
54 months ago
tbh, I like the look of it on iOS and OS X. Makes sense to have a consistent UI across all devices.
54 months ago
Please no. That font would look terrible on iOS. If anything, give us a choice!
54 months ago
Change for the sake of change.
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.
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.
54 months ago
I wish Apple were less patriotic about their home state.
I wish Americans were less jingoisticly patriotic in general, but a man can dream.
[ Read All Comments ]
After a busy few weeks of news and rumors, things slowed down a little bit this week, but there were still some major stories worth highlighting. Those include our first hands-on look at dummy models...
For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Reolink to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an Argus 2 wire-free rechargeable home camera and a solar panel for charging it up outdoors.
...
Apple Music has renamed its "The A-List: Hip-Hop" playlist to "Rap Life."
Ebro Darden, global editorial head of hip-hop and R&B at Apple Music, will host a companion...
Samsung is believed to be Apple's exclusive supplier of OLED displays for iPhones, but it may have company soon.
In a research note shared with MacRumors, Barclays analysts said fellow...
1Password has restored the option for customers who originally purchased its iOS app to create a local vault during setup, after users queued up online to voice their frustrations with the fact that...
Apple is planning to open an office in highly desired location in Vancouver, Canada reports Bloomberg. The company has leased space in a 24-story office building at 400 West Georgia owned by...
Elevation Lab, known for its line of popular iPhone charging docks, today released the FamilyCharger, a multi-charging setup designed to allow you to charge all of your devices in one place.
The...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming macOS Catalina update to its public beta testing group, two weeks after seeding the second public beta and a day after seeding the fourth developer...
