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Home / News / Like the Apple Watch’s font? It’ll be all over iOS and OS X before long

Like the Apple Watch’s font? It’ll be all over iOS and OS X before long

Report claims that Apple intends to spread its specially made font across all operating systems

Helvetica Neue took over as the system font in iOS 7, and last year, it spread to OS X Yosemite as well. However, the Apple Watch didn’t carry over that trend, using Apple’s own San Francisco font on the tiny, wearable screen.

And now it seems that the Watch was a testing bed for San Francisco, as 9to5Mac cites inside sources in a report saying it’ll head to iOS 9 and Mac OS X 10.11, both expected out this autumn. In fact, we’ll probably get a glimpse at both next month at the Worldwide Developers Conference. The mocked-up screens below show what the font should look like running on an iPhone.

Not everyone has been a huge fan of Helvetica Neue, as the slim weights of the font can affect readability. San Francisco looks great on the Apple Watch screen, and Apple has said it was designed “specifically for legibility.” That ought to carry over to larger screens, as well.

This year’s iOS update has been pegged as being more for stability and performance rather than a big aesthetic overhaul, so a font change would be a subtle, yet not dramatic visual tweak. Apple has reportedly had the font in builds of both iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 since late March, so it seems well on its way to making the consumer version.

As 9to5Mac points out, even the recent 12in Macbook uses San Francisco as the letter font for its keyboard, so a shift to using it across all operating systems (and presumably hardware, as well) doesn’t seem so far-fetched. We should find out for sure come early June.

[Source: 9to5Mac]

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Profile image of Andrew Hayward Andrew Hayward Freelance Writer

About

Andrew writes features, news stories, reviews, and other pieces, often when the UK home team is off-duty or asleep. I'm based in Chicago with my lovely wife, amazing son, and silly cats, and my writing about games, gadgets, esports, apps, and plenty more has appeared in more than 75 publications since 2006.

Areas of expertise

Video games, gadgets, apps, smart home

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