Even though I like Helvetica Neue, I really dig the new San Francisco font, it is a pretty nice alternative that seems to work pretty well for those who are using a non-Retina Display. If you want to bring back Lucida Grande, this Github repository has a handy script that will do that for you (some work colleagues of mine, designers mainly did it to bring back the old font): https://github.com/schreiberstein/lucidagrandeyosemite
Thin weight type has uses in good design, but the way it's being applied ad nauseum today is a gimmick.
The overuse of thin fonts might look dated in the future, but I don't agree that this trend is totally inspired by retina screens. If anything, I think Serif fonts have seen the greatest resurgence on web due to Retina screens. High DPI screens will impact our perception of all fonts, just as sans serif grew in popularity on lower dpi screens causing their perception to be more modern and technological.
In general typography as a whole has become much more interesting on retina screens. So yes, fonts look better now than ever before so don't cheat by using superthin because its trendy.
San Francisco seems to work best at (very) small sizes, where Helvetica breaks. It proves further that Apple thinks of each screen size as a distinct UI - clearly the biggest difference with Google's approach to UI. Off topic: the 2 screen sizes for Watch show they don't want accidental developers for this platform, only fully committed ones.
I do find Helvetica works better on my Mac screen than SF (I tested in Mail.app).
Perhaps the following would work. Otherwise it might be on some obscure printer disk. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/58243/can-i-get-th...
It echoes Erik Spiekermann's view as well: Helvetica wasn't designed for small sizes on screen.
Helvetica was one of the things that made the iPhone so great.
Helvetica is neutral, timeless and easy to read. It's the perfect user interface font, especially the UI-optimized version OS X 10.10 is using.
As always, people just hate change.
That said, San Fransisco is a cool font, it just looks horrible as a computer font: too much space, and it's almost like all the characters look the same. But for a small device like a watch it's perfect.
Not according to typographers. :)
http://gizmodo.com/designers-explain-why-apples-new-os-x-typ...
Interesting you say that, but prefer Helvetica. Quote from Erik Spiekermann in the film Helvetica: "Because all the letters...it's the whole Swiss ideology; the guy who designed it tried to make all the letters look the same."
Only big difference I can see is the 'Q'.
A better comparison would be to say that they both fall into the same typographic category; they are both humanist sans families with a bit of geometric rigidity; both have been compared to the classic DIN type.
That overlay isn't particularly useful; it only shows that the two families have comparable metrics and tend to follow the letterform patterns common to the category. A better visualization would be a closeup overlay of some characteristic letters, or a pangram set in each.
San Francisco is squarer which makes its x-height seem higher. The minor variations in lettering make a massive difference when used in application.
100% not a knockoff of Roboto. They're really, really different.
Distributing it on Github & using it for non-development purposes (i.e. as a system font) is probably against the TOS, but not sure Apple will care enough to do anything about it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cl4to142icjw2ay/Screenshot%202014-...
The issue is open on Github: https://github.com/wellsriley/YosemiteSanFranciscoFont/issue...
Anyway, since Yosemite the font for the menu bar has been a bit "bitty" and not smooth which contrasts sharply with the rest of the shininess seen everywhere - does this resolve this? I thought I'd ask before taking the plunge.
Here's the bar for me: http://i.imgur.com/oKnD674.png
Form follows function => Font Function = legibility => don't use too thin fonts in smaller sizes.
I presume that this is against github's TOS.
Uninstall sadly :-(
I just wish there was a way to bring the old dock back, then I might upgrade.
And now I'm finding out this new font- my only real reason for a 5GB update- is so unpopular that a hack to replace it is front page on HN.
1. Calendar/Contacts are cleaned up further from what they used to be.
2. The little green button no longer leaves you wondering what it does, it simply full screens now on a single monitor
3. There seems to be better consistency across many different applications when it comes to look and feel, and all of the partial see-through/blurriness actually feels pretty nice and gives interfaces a little more depth.
4. Improved Safari with a new JIT JavaScript engine that makes the web definitely feel faster
5. iCloud Drive integration, which is nice if you have multiple Macs
6. Spotlight has been massively improved, and is close to replacing Quicksilver for me.
The Apple Watch SDK was released today, and people are falling in love with the new font that was released, this hack simply replaces Helvetica Neue with that new font, there is no requirement for you to do so, and I personally won't be replacing my existing font with the one linked here.
I know you can hold down alt or whatever to make it behave like it used to, but I wish they'd put an option in to make it behave like it used to as the DEFAULT.
Disgraceful.
As much as I don't like Yosemite (they really broke Spotlight), its UI is much better than that of previous versions.
