The Apple Watch’s San Francisco font will reportedly appear in iOS 9 and Mac OS X 10.11
Get ready to head to San Francisco with iOS 9 and OS X 10.11.
A new report from 9to5Mac says the font, which first appeared on the Apple Watch, will be the system font on both of those new software versions. Currently, the system font in iOS 8 and Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite is Helvetica Neue.
Here’s more from the report:
According to the sources familiar with the decision to move to the San Francisco type face on iOS and OS X, Apple higher-ups also believe that the new look will serve to refresh its familiar operating systems, helping iOS and OS X to avoid becoming stale. However, some Apple engineers have told us that they are not fans of the new font, which may look particularly rough on non-Retina screens.
Helvetica Neue first appeared on iOS devices with iOS 7 while the font made its way to the Mac last year with Yosemite. The switch to San Francisco would take a significant effort by Apple to revamp all of the built-in features of both the mobile and desktop OS.
The site also speculated that Apple would push developers to redesign their third-party apps with the new font before the software is officially released to the public, probably sometime this fall.
Apple is widely expected to unveil both iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 during its keynote address at WWDC on Monday, June 8.
It’s not a big surprise that Apple is expanding the San Francisco font to iOS and OS X. Along with the Apple Watch, the keyboard on the new MacBook even features characters printed with the font. While a very subtle difference, making the switch from Helvetica Neue is a good one that will streamline and improve Apple’s software across all fronts.
For other news today, see: Facebook Messenger video chat is now available almost worldwide, Apple Watch development could become more powerful with future update, and Ahead of Apple’s Beats Music revamp, Spotify adds videos and podcasts to the mix.