Hard to read fonts

[kmj2318]

Text all over the system seems tiny and hard to read. I don't know if they could make it bigger because it would mess with the measurements everywhere. Notifications, Safari bar, they seem so much smaller than before. It really doesn't help that a lot of them are sort of a grey color instead of black. We had a similar problem in iOS 7, and they listened, so I figured to see if anyone else felt that there was something wrong here. I'm using a retina, I can't imagine how it is on non-retina screens.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Text all over the system seems tiny and hard to read. I don't know if they could make it bigger because it would mess with the measurements everywhere. Notifications, Safari bar, they seem so much smaller than before. It really doesn't help that a lot of them are sort of a grey color instead of black. We had a similar problem in iOS 7, and they listened, so I figured to see if anyone else felt that there was something wrong here. I'm using a retina, I can't imagine how it is on non-retina screens.

Strange, my experience on a non-Retina screen (MBP 2011) wasn't bad at all. It was, for the most part, easy to read. The font was just more modern, I guess. However, in a few areas, it was a bit hard to read or was misaligned. I'm positive Apple will tweak this during the beta program.

An example of misaligned/weirdly spaced font usage can be seen in the Setup Assistant after installation. See photo - notice how the f and i's are so close together you almost can't see the dot?

 

[Jessica Lares]

That was something I was hoping I could fix in the accessibly settings. I mean, even my MacBook Pro's KEYBOARD is better.

But no really, it's really straining my eyes at just 5 minutes in. I hope this is something that someone figures out how to fix in the Terminal.

Otherwise am loving it. Now to dig through the new Xcode and Swift.

 

[hamis92]

I miss Lucida Grande already.

 

[Jessica Lares]

I miss Lucida Grande already.

Me too. And I almost had a heart attack because my Mavericks partition went missing. Thankfully a quick fix in Disk Utility did the trick.

 

[SmOgER]

I'am not trying to say there that OS X is inferiorto WIN,

but with all honesty, when you boot into virtual WIN7/WIN8 from Mavericks don't you find the fonts a lot more readable as if suddenly the resolution of the screen drastically increased?

Well Apple now thankfully fixed these scrappy/blurry fonts with dirty edges and made them how they should be, but I guess there will be always someone who is whining about everything

My statement doesn't apply to those with retina screens, but we have minority of them here.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Well Apple now thankfully fixed these scrappy/blurry fonts with dirty edges and made them how they should be, but I guess there will be always someone who is whining about everything

Those "dirty" edges helped for text to stand out more. Really, the only thing they have to do is give us the bolder Helvetica option and it'll be OK.

 

[coldjeanzzz]

I miss Lucida Grande already.

This obsession with Helvetica is starting to annoy me. It looks fine on a mobile device, but it just doesn't fit well at all on OS X. It looks so unprofessional and ugly, especially at smaller sizes. Lucida Grande should have stayed put but Apple is trying to jam this fusion of OS X and iOS down our throats.

 

[dblissmn]

It's just a horrible font for a desktop operating system. It actually makes me consider setting up a dual boot with Windows, it's that bad.

Lucida Grande is one of the two or three most legible fonts I can think of; it continues to set OS X apart from everything else for sheer class and comfort. Helvetica Neue is a font for graphic artists who don't read; it looks pretty as a display font and that's about it.

 

[ATC]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. My vision is at least 20/20 but I do find the visuals now are harder on the eyes, whether it's the fonts, the fonts' background, other visual elements... I can't quite put my finger on it but I feel my eyes straining more now using 10.10 than 10.9, on the same hardware. Small things like the wifi status on menu bar I can't tell if it's full bars or one. Even Macrumors site itself the fonts are all a bit off.

On a related note, I also notice visual stutters while scrolling in Safari. The scrolling is noticeably less smooth than in 10.9 but that will improve I'm sure as the drivers and other things get optimized in later builds.

 

[pmz]

Text all over the system seems tiny and hard to read. I don't know if they could make it bigger because it would mess with the measurements everywhere. Notifications, Safari bar, they seem so much smaller than before. It really doesn't help that a lot of them are sort of a grey color instead of black. We had a similar problem in iOS 7, and they listened, so I figured to see if anyone else felt that there was something wrong here. I'm using a retina, I can't imagine how it is on non-retina screens.

There are some visual glitches that are obviously not the finished, polished product.