Apple’s technique does make use of font hinting, at least in some fonts at small sizes
Though the readability improvement with the new font is obvious, I’ll be sorry to see Highway Gothic replaced—it’s always been the ne plus ultra of folk typography to me. And what about all the poor font geeks whose sensibilities will be shattered by seeing the two side-by-side for an n-year transition period? Two or more similar faces nearby is a freshman mistake in design. Like seeing MS Sans Serif, Tahoma, and Trebuchet MS all on the same screen. Yeah, I’m talking to you, default Windows XP theme. 
Yeah, I’m talking to you, default Windows XP theme.
It’s even worse in Vista, where there are different fonts all over the place-- no consistency, thanks to lax enforcement of design policies across the entire Borg cube working on Vista.
One of the few Vista criticisms from Chris Pirillo that I agree with.
http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/09/26/fix-windows-vistas-fonts/
the Mac OS, via the appearance menu, turns off hints when anti-aliasing is turned on.
I don’t believe this is true. Have another look at my font samples
In the 11-px Times sample, Mac OS X’s rendering almost exactly follows the same grid as FontFocus’s hinting, but adds sub-pixel antialiasing.
There’s less of a visible effect in the tiny helvetica sample, but it seems to me that Mac OS at least aligns the horizontal lines to the grid, providing a crisp baseline and top of the x-height (contrary to FontFocus’s claim).
I admit this effect is subtle or invisible with most fonts and sizes, but it simply doesn’t seem to be true that there is no hinting or grid-fitting at all.
very interesting page
He puts a few sentences in about the whole font rendering battle, and almost every comment is about that, squabbling over a few pixels. If you want to whine about it, do it somewhere else. Note to Mr. Atwood: Don’t let even a few words slip about you-know-what in future posts.
As a programmer, I can attest that the readability of a font is very important to me. Took me a while to work out my preferred style. With the correct font, I can work. With a bad font, I just can’t concentrate.
I think you should check out the work of E. Spiekermann for the German government, about which is his book “Stop stealing sheep, plus find how type works”.
nda
Hola, donde encuentro los fonts clearview demo, download para
conocerlos y usarlos, versiones beta?
I don’t know how or what to key to hit to make the font bigger when I am copying something off the web.
Brooke_hollow@yahoo.com
I am still learning about the computer. I do know how to do the font in word, but not from a website. Please someone help me.
Thank you] Ginny
@Dave Murdock: Wow - you’re really taking this personally.
If you re-read Jeff’s previous post comparing the font-rendering of the two OS’s, you’ll notice that the biggest difference is the way Microsoft focuses more on the pixel grid versus the “design” of the font.
What the “Microsoft way” gives to the highway sign is a crisp, clear font rendering that is easy to read from further away. Even though we’re not talking about digital rendering of the font, it’s still the same concept. If they were to use the “Apple way”, the fuzziness of the font wouldn’t help drivers in any way to get rid of the blur they experience when reading the signs; especially at night.
I think it’s perfectly fair for Jeff to make the comment about Microsoft “getting it right” - at least when considering readability in this context.