Apple Watch’s San Francisco

[GrubStreet]

This topic was imported from the Typophile platform

Apple has just released WatchKit along with its custom typeface for free. Somebody will eventually post the same thread so I’m doing it.
http://i.imgur.com/laxcc0q.png

A brief collection of (somewhat hostile) opinions I’ve seen:
1. Apple, are you seriously making a mimicry of Roboto, which the typographic community have despised for a million times?
2. Apple, are you seriously copying prevalent neo-grotesks like Akkurat or LL Circular? (This rhetorical question is followed usually by an onslaught against Apple’s degraded moral integrity.)
3. Apple, your copycat neo-grotesk is done so badly, it’s like Arial when in comparison with Helvetica.
4. Apple, are you out of your ideas? Another Helvetica mimicry? I was waiting for a more original design and you’ve disappointed me.
5. For no reason, sans-serifs – especially neo-grotesks – are inherently bad. Those who are obsessed with this “Helvetica fad” are out of their minds.

Your thoughts?

[Riccardo Sartori]

6. Susan Kare's original San Francisco was better.
http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/san-francisco/

[ChristTrekker]

I was going to say, "Apple already has a font named San Francisco," but you're right, the original was better. Most of the people working at Apple today probably don't remember Mac OS shipping with it.

[hrant]

I think the new San Francisco typeface is technically nicely nuanced (I downloaded it and took a look) but I do have to agree with those saying it makes the Watch look like an Android device, which is quite lame in terms of branding.

The silver lining is that this is still the most typographic savvy Apple has mustered in the past decade or two.

hhp

[dberlowgone]

"Your thoughts?"

I think some people grossly overestimate the importance of system font selection, and few can do better than grossly underestimate the complexity of system font deployment.

For example:
"6. Susan Kare's original San Francisco was better."

Opinions abound, but the original S.F. did not play out so well to all of unicode, as this font must. So who cares? People who will argue over the techno-aesthetic comparison of two fonts that share nothing but the same name and publisher, kind of seem weirdly tripped out to me.

Can't wait for a watch, but I will. That's the One and Only Way to know how good this font is. Pretty good marketing to type designers, no?

[Riccardo Sartori]

David, mine was intended as an obviously humorous remark.
(but intentionally trying to widen the perspective referring to another device-constrain-driven typeface from the same source, and not to the latest "à la mode" sans serif for cool kids)

[quadibloc]

I definitely don't think it's a Helvetica knockoff, or that it looks like any of the Android fonts.

What it reminded me of was DIN, but moderated in the direction of a conventional sans-serif like Univers or Helvetica. Roboto may have some DIN influence too in its upper-case, but not to the same extent; by comparison, Roboto is close to News Gothic.

Akkurat? Not even close.

So to me, the question is: will the straight sides taken from DIN really improve the appearance of this typeface on dot-matrix displays, which is presumably the intent? Or, given the prevalence of high-resolution displays on mobile devices, was this an unfortunate step at the wrong time?

[Igor Freiberger]

San Francisco fonts are pre-release and full of problems by now. Avoid using them, especially considering them become the system font upon installation on Yosemite.

The display set uses proportional figures as default, what disrupts alignment on date or size columns (and also some menubar apps). Its huge x-height may work in very small displays with a minimum of text, like Apple Watch, but soon becomes very annoying in other scenarios — like Mac OS menus and dialogs.

Although better, the text set shares a number of problems with the display one:
– error on dollar symbol;
– bad interpolated heavy Œ;
– breve accent misplaced in every occurrence;
– grave/acute bad positioning, especially with i;
– poor tilde and caron design.

The fonts also support only Latin extended, without Cyrillic, Greek and phonetic sets (Mac OS will invoke another font for these). Note that San Francisco is part of Apple Watch SDK, aimed to developers. So, this is not a beta testing initiative by Apple to improve font quality. It is simply an incomplete, unpolished typeface which may or may not be corrected upon Watch release.

[Michel Boyer]

I donwloaded the font from the link above. The license description (NameID=13) is

This San Francisco font is licensed to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) in consideration of your agreement to the following terms. If you do not agree with these terms, do not use the San Francisco font.

You may use the San Francisco font solely for purposes of design and development of applications for the Apple Watch. The foregoing right includes the right to show the San Francisco font in screen shots, images or mock-ups of an Apple Watch application.

This San Francisco font is pre-release and is subject to change and should not be relied upon as a final commercial release of the San Francisco font. You may use this font only for the purposes described in this License and only if you are a Registered Apple Developer who is part of an iOS Developer Program team, or as otherwise expressly permitted by Apple in writing. To the extent that there are any inconsistent terms in any applicable Apple software license agreements, these terms shall govern your use of the San Francisco font.

How come then that the site above is providing a ruby script to install the font on OS X 10.10 given those terms ?

[Frode Bo Helland]

Because they don’t give a damn about the license. This marks the day the EULA died.

[JamesM]

> become the system font upon installation on Yosemite

Based on what I've read, San Francisco doesn't become the system font unless a series of deliberate steps are followed. And it can be uninstalled.

It should be considered pre-release (as you mentioned) until the watch is released.

https://github.com/wellsriley/YosemiteSanFranciscoFont

[JamesM]

I doubt if Apple cares if folks play with it, they just want to protect themselves if the pre-release version is used for non-intended purposes and causes any problems.

[hrant]

For a big corporation a EULA is simply an aid in suing people.

It should be considered pre-release (as you mentioned) until the watch is released.

Good point. However Apple's dual track records of not caring much about typographic quality lately and not really believing in open beta-testing mean the release version of these fonts will probably maintain many of these problems.

hhp

[Michel Boyer]

By the way, all the fonts from the link given in https://typography.guru/forums/topic/131416-forwarding#comment-594054 have an emsize of 984. How can that affect rendering?

[GrubStreet]

not really believing in open beta-testing

This is not true considering Yosemite’s public beta programs.

I think Apple will take the time to make things right. Apple Watch has been introduced as the first “one-more-thing” after Jobs, and that reflects how serious and ambitious Apple is regarding this product. If the Hellvetica mania on Yosemite is Jony Ive’s personal obsession, then I think this time San Francisco won’t be affected by that.

One of my friends has replaced his iOS system font with San Francisco. Everything seem to have been working fine for now.

[Bert Vanderveen]

984 is a multiple of 328, which apparently will be the resolution of the AppleWatch display.

[hrant]

Ah, interesting. I guess deviating from 1000 to facilitate integer point sizes makes sense.

hhp

[Igor Freiberger]

Based on what I've read, San Francisco doesn't become the system font unless a series of deliberate steps are followed. And it can be uninstalled.

You do not need to do any additional step. Simply install SF and it becomes the system default. Uninstall and restart, the system come back to its original condition. It seems that specifications inside the font are read by Yosemite to define that.

[dberlowgone]

"How can that affect rendering?"

The resolution of the fonts is around 3 times the resolution of the watch face, so the units per em of this font file would not likely effect rendering on this device. The reason 984 was chosen for this font is likely to be found in the combination of divisibility and file size reduction.

If this is a 1 x 1.25 inch device with a 384 dpi display, (which BTW, is 4.555 pixels per point), it's likely that a 984 unit font would work faster, and take up less space than a 2048 per em font, without any visual degradation. This would also save untold byte space in a font with an extensive glyph repertoire.

It is that extensive glyph repertoire, and previous hints of Apple not keeping much in residence on future devices, and knowing just how precious every single bit of space and processing power is in a wearable, that leads me to believe this font is going places. ;)

[hrant]

Oh, I was wrong about the integer point size advantage. Might there be an integer advantage somewhere else?

So I don't see how it makes sense to use 984 instead of 1000 after all. The savings (assuming compression, since otherwise anything from 513 to 1024 is the same) is very minimal, and sticking to 1000 (even with 2048 being an option) still has advantages in terms of robustness. In fact people have been reporting a bug related to deviating from 1000 UPM in OSX; it's ironic that Apple's own flagship typeface suffers from that.

this font is going places.

In the heart of every fanboy, there was never any doubt; for some even Chalkboard would've been hailed as a genial choice. Nevermind that using a font that makes Apple look like Android (just like the size jump of the new iPhones) is supposed to be highly offensive, and more significantly, weakens the brand.

hhp

[GrubStreet]

Just out of curiosity I installed SF as Yosemite System Font. Gosh it’s so dilapidated for now... Definitely switching back.

But one thing does strike me: there’s no way this looks like Roboto. Upon installation I feel like my Mac is occupied by DIN.

[hrant]

As a designer you have DIN on your mind; the mind of a consumer of portable devices is much more attuned to Roboto. Don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing Apple of direct plagiarism, I just think something consciously less like Roboto would have been smarter in terms of branding.

hhp

[Té Rowan]

Why 984, @hrant? Well, it is 328×3, which f.ex. gives the software folk a grid that makes anti-aliasing or sub-pixel rendering easy.

[hrant]

Easy as in faster to render? I wonder if the –probably minor– gain is worth it.

hhp

[GrubStreet]

The two’s letterforms may look similar when closely examined separately. But when put into performance and the nuances come into play, the difference is dramatic. You can easily distinguish one from another – I mean, I use SF on my Yosemite Mac and also am using Android on my phone. It strikes me because I’m surprised how two typefaces that may look similar on the larger scale would be so much different when put into actual use. Especially when at smaller point sizes in UI, Apple’s optical fine-tuning helps a lot (minute things like stroke stress, terminals, stroke emphasis and overshoot suppression etc.).

People might think that Apple is ripping off Roboto, but I think that impression would be dispersed once they see and use the actual Apple Watch.