El Capitan Font (San Francisco) on Yosemite

[loftiness]

hey folks,

If you haven't noticed, there's a big typographical change from Helvetica Neue to San Francisco on os x (iOS as well). It's a special variant of San Francisco, different from the watchOS version. I was intrigued so I ported the font back to Yosemite using the system font patcher. I'm sharing those fonts for those who are curious to try (but don't wanna install 10.11 beta on their production system).

All you need to do is extract the fonts into /Library/Fonts/ and reboot. To remove simply delete the fonts.

Somethings to note, the metric looks distinctive from Helvetica Neue, so far I like it.

 

[xmichaelp]

Honestly I can't really notice a difference. Nowhere near as different as it was using the older version of san fran on yosemite.

 

[joeszef1]

Thanks for this. Looks okay on a rMBP. Maybe we just need sometime to get used to it.

 

[costica1234]

The new font is amazing. Looks more refined and polished compared to Helvetica Neue and I really love it. Wonder why Apple didn't mention it in the keynote... Also for iOS, the font change makes the OS look fresher than ever .

 

[mkeeley]

It's fine, not a massive change, certainly not amazing unless you've never been amazed by anything before. There are a few letter such as G O Q I'm not that keen on but it's OK.

 

[navaira]

On non-Retina I think I prefer Helvetica (!). Also, Chrome needs to be optimised for San Francisco, it cuts down the bottom of page title on tabs. Thanks for the upload though!

 

[maflynn]

Does anyone notice a difference, @xmichaelp mentioned he didn't notice any difference.

 

[navaira]

I definitely notice a difference, both from Helvetica and from the Watch version of San Francisco. The most important (to me) difference from Watch version is that the clock looks correct (Watch version merged the : sign with numbers before and after). On non-Retina screen the kerning seems to be veeery tight – I hope this changes before release. So that + Chrome problem.

 

[X--X]

This is actually a HUGE fail for Apple.

I love the NEW version of San Francisco, they made letters like O and G more round and wider - big improvement over the original version. It looks less like DIN now and more like Helvetica.

The new version of the typeface is also part of watchOS 2.0

BUT the brand new 12inch MacBooks now use an already outdated and failed version of the font.

That's kind of weird, they must have argued a lot about this internally.

 

[Sheza]

This is actually a HUGE fail for Apple.

I love the NEW version of San Francisco, they made letters like O and G more round and wider - big improvement over the original version. It looks less like DIN now and more like Helvetica.

The new version of the typeface is also part of watchOS 2.0

BUT the brand new 12inch MacBooks now use an already outdated and failed version of the font.

That's kind of weird, they must have argued a lot about this internally.

How is it a fail....? They can just upgrade to El Capitan in the fall?

 

[X--X]

How is it a fail....? They can just upgrade to El Capitan in the fall?

Upgrade their hardware keyboards? I don't think so.

The new Macbooks are the first Apple computers to use a different font on the keyboard in over 10 years. A font they've now changed significantly just weeks after shipping those devices.


But again... I still think it is a change for the better. The original version of San Francisco was not great.

 

[F1Mac]

This is actually a HUGE fail for Apple.

I love the NEW version of San Francisco, they made letters like O and G more round and wider - big improvement over the original version. It looks less like DIN now and more like Helvetica.

The new version of the typeface is also part of watchOS 2.0

BUT the brand new 12inch MacBooks now use an already outdated and failed version of the font.

That's kind of weird, they must have argued a lot about this internally.

What are you talking about? San Fransisco has never been officially used until now on El Capitan. The "brand new 12inch MacBooks" are shipping with Yosemite and Helvetica.

[edit] ok just saw your posts about the keyboard above... Still not much of a difference between the two SFs though.

 

[X--X]

Still not much of a difference between the two SFs though.

They changed/tweek almost every letter.

 

[SG-]

you really notice it with smaller font size like in Mail.app in the To: CC: etc fields, it's thinner. also another thing to do if you have retina is make sure to try turning off font smoothing since you don't really need it, at least see if you like it. font smoothing just ends up making it thicker looking.

 

[X--X]

Absolutely "font smoothing" is terrible - I always deactivate that even on non-retina screens. Text looks way better without it.

 

[kmj2318]

This is actually a HUGE fail for Apple.

I love the NEW version of San Francisco, they made letters like O and G more round and wider - big improvement over the original version. It looks less like DIN now and more like Helvetica.

The new version of the typeface is also part of watchOS 2.0

BUT the brand new 12inch MacBooks now use an already outdated and failed version of the font.

That's kind of weird, they must have argued a lot about this internally.

Wow you're going overboard. San Francisco wasn't changed. They obviously have variants of San Francisco, the same way Helvetica has condensed and expanded variants. And watchOS still has the condensed version, I don't know what you're looking at. Also, the Apple Music logo uses the same variant used on the watch.

It's not about new vs. old, they are both part of a larger font family.

 

[X--X]

It's not about new vs. old, they are both part of a larger font family.

No.

It's one font family with different cuts (from heavy to light) that was changed.


Old Version Number: San Francisco 10.0d64e2

New Version Number: San Francisco 11.0d45e1


These are not different cuts of one family, this is a new version.
They are currently transitioning to that new version.

 

[DubelBoom]

I actually can't see any difference between Yosemite's and El Capitan's default font..

 

[loftiness]

I definitely notice a difference, both from Helvetica and from the Watch version of San Francisco. The most important (to me) difference from Watch version is that the clock looks correct (Watch version merged the : sign with numbers before and after). On non-Retina screen the kerning seems to be veeery tight – I hope this changes before release. So that + Chrome problem. View attachment 560797

it's possible that it's a yosemite problem? I assume you are using the ported fonts on yosemite. The metric of SFNS (what the filename is under 10.11) is different from helvetica neue, so it does look odd in several places on 10.10. For example, go to "About This Mac"

 

[loftiness]

No.

It's one font family with different cuts (from heavy to light) that was changed.


Old Version Number: San Francisco 10.0d64e2

New Version Number: San Francisco 11.0d45e1


These are not different cuts of one family, this is a new version.
They are currently transitioning to that new version.

I think it's more likely that this is the iOS/os x version of san francisco. The watch version looks distinctive but great on its own already (similar to DIN), while the desktop/mobile version looks more like helvetica.

 

[redheeler]

hey folks,

If you haven't noticed, there's a big typographical change from Helvetica Neue to San Francisco on os x (iOS as well). It's a special variant of San Francisco, different from the watchOS version. I was intrigued so I ported the font back to Yosemite using the system font patcher. I'm sharing those fonts for those who are curious to try (but don't wanna install 10.11 beta on their production system).

All you need to do is extract the fonts into /Library/Fonts/ and reboot. To remove simply delete the fonts.

Somethings to note, the metric looks distinctive from Helvetica Neue, so far I like it.

View attachment 560778

Thanks, I don't know why I didn't think to do this myself.

it's possible that it's a yosemite problem? I assume you are using the ported fonts on yosemite. The metric of SFNS (what the filename is under 10.11) is different from helvetica neue, so it does look odd in several places on 10.10. For example, go to "About This Mac" View attachment 560896

Yes, the same was true when I was using the pre-10.11 version of the font on Yosemite.

 

[kmj2318]

No.

It's one font family with different cuts (from heavy to light) that was changed.


Old Version Number: San Francisco 10.0d64e2

New Version Number: San Francisco 11.0d45e1


These are not different cuts of one family, this is a new version.
They are currently transitioning to that new version.

You don't know what you're talking about.

 

[X--X]

I think it's more likely that this is the iOS/os x version of san francisco.

If that was the case they wouldn't do the exact same family and up the version number.

They would just do separate cuts called "Condensed" or "Narrow"... but they didn't, they made an updated version of the whole family.

 

[cambookpro]

I think it's more likely that this is the iOS/os x version of san francisco. The watch version looks distinctive but great on its own already (similar to DIN), while the desktop/mobile version looks more like helvetica.

Did someone not say that watchOS 2 uses this new version?

 

[nontroppo]

Just watched the WWDC text session live stream, very interesting to note this is now an optical sized font — they have a switch at 20pt between display and text variants, and a lot of opentype features which need to be triggered by the system APIs (for example they are switching from monospaced to proportional numbers by default). That means that you'll need 10.11 to make the most of SF as a system font, patching yosemite is not going to be the same experience...

https://developer.apple.com/fonts/