iTunes 11.0 and Helvetica

[aluminum]

"Challenging users to really leverage their abilities is not"

Not sure what you mean.

"MS used to be all about money, but look at Bill Gates now"

MS is still all about money.

I guess you're getting at bigger philosophical thoughts in terms of what the roles of corporations should be in society. I imagine I'd probably agree with your stance on most of it.

[LexLuengas]

2

[oldnick]

Does the expression "Who gives a rat's ass?" strike a familiar note?

Here comes de judge, here comes de judge...

[oldnick]

Does the expression "Who gives a rat's ass?" strike a familiar note?

Here come de judge, here come de judge...

[JamesM]

Bill Gates retired from daily involvement several years ago and is now heavily involved in charity work. Good for him, but that's his personal actions, not the company's.

Microsoft as a company is still very money-oriented; in fact a frequent criticism of CEO Steve Balmer is that he's been too focused on maintaining their cash cows of Windows and the Office Suite while failing to keep up with the innovations of their competitors. And its not just critics of the company that have said that; some of their strongest supporters have also complained about that.

[Thomas Phinney]

1

Of course, the problem isn't that it's the iTunes font. The problem is that it is also the iOS main system font. Insanity.

[JamesM]

Which fonts would be better choices?

[Chris Dean]

I’d pick Chicago if I could. Wheres my 8-track player?

[Thomas Phinney]

James: My objection is primarily to the very closed apertures in Helvetica. Most any humanist sans serif would do better. They were already using Myriad as a corporate typeface, it would have been just fine. Your own Clearview would have been great.

[JamesM]

> James...Your own Clearview would have been great

Actually I'm not James Montalbano. I'm a different JamesM.

[Thomas Phinney]

That's funny. I've been assuming you were him for a little while now! I guess I should have clicked on your user name. My bad.

[JamesM]

No problem; I've made similar mistakes here when names are similar.

[George Horton]

1 for Helvetica at small sizes, and 1.5 for Lucida Grande. To me the latter seems unjustifiably smug in its humane-late-modernism, because of the coarseness of, for instance, the way the bowls get away from stems on bpdq. (That's not to accuse the designers of smugness; I'm sure they're not. And my misperception of Lucida Grande is probably rare, but it is fairly intense.)

[Si_Daniels]

Which fonts would be better choices?

A font formed from twigs or perhaps that looks like it's carved from panther pelt wall hangings would be more fitting. ;-)

[Chris Dean]

Someone also started a thread on the Apple Support Communities discussion board about changing the font in iTunes 11.0:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4554797?start=0&tstart=0

[hrant]

Lucida Grande ... seems unjustifiably smug in its humane-late-modernism

Superbly put.

hhp

[Jens Kutilek]

With the help of the discussion thread linked by Chris, I changed my iTunes fonts to the Segoe UI family :)

https://twitter.com/jenskutilek/status/275236961424388096/photo/1

[apankrat]

What's iTunes?

[Chris Dean]

So it worked? Sweet! Chicago, here I come!

[marcox]

3. Neutral.

iTunes isn't immersive reading. Helvetica is entirely adequate for the job.

[Té Rowan]

@apankrat – It's Apple's music business and related software.

[JamesM]

The "iTunes" name originally fit the product better when it was just a jukebox music application. But over the years it's grown into a general-purpose media control app, used to shop for and organize all kinds of media (movies, books, apps, tv shows, etc). Also used to control syncing of iPhones or iPads to your computer.

[hrant]

Yes, "iAmYourMaster" would be better.

hhp

[Té Rowan]

As they used to say: Every app grows until it can read mail.

[Typogruffer]

As they used to say: Every app grows until it can read mail.

I actually laughed out loud after reading this. Nice one sir!

Typogruffer