Well, that’s enough for me to switch to Safari… if it isn’t interfering with a certain DLL files…
The anti-aliasing actually looks nearly as good as OS X’s, and I’ve always hated Windows’ pseudo-font smoothing. Smaller font sizes make the text look geeky, but would print out as a smaller version of the font (which it should be). Apple is taking a few steps forward with realistic anti-aliasing, and it’s really what-you-see-is-what-you-print.
Many people criticize Microsoft, but it makes many good products with high usability. Good fonts are one of such things.
Top looks and reads better to me in pretty much every way.
Look at the GRC in both, geez…
I too downloaded the Safari 3 beta for Windows and found the fonts blurry - however if you go into Preferences and then to Appearance you can turn the font smoothing down to “Light” and it then gets much clearer from close up!!
Until you zoomed in, both looked fine to me.
I agree that ClearType is superior to Tiger’s but, to me, the difference is noticeable only when they are side-by-side as it is shown in this post. It’s unfortunate that Apple neglected to use ClearType in Safari for Windows.
I recently jumped ship to OSX (I was a .net developer since beta 2). I use XP and OSX at the same time via Parallels and VMWare Fusion. When you work with both at the same time, it becomes painfully apparent how crappy Windows font smoothing is compared to Apple. In fact, it’s easy to see how crappy Windows looks in general compared to Apple.
Not a fanboy, btw. I appreciate both platforms, but you clearly missed the mark on this one.
I use Mac’s exclusively at home and I agree with you about OS X’s font rendering.
I read an article yesterday by a 'Softie that touched on the differences between OS X and Windows font rendering - http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/5049 (via http://blogs.msdn.com/fontblog/archive/2007/06/11/the-technology-of-text.aspx). The implication is that Adobe and Apple use the same approach, of making the font rendering faithful to printed text, whereas Microsoft try to make on-screen text easier to read…on-screen. Yeah, I think Apple and Adobe are wrong if that’s what they’re doing.
Amusing responses. Will Apple sheep ever admit fault, at any time, under any circumstances?
A lot of the comments seem to center around the notion that Apple’s font rendering is closer to print. Guys - that’s not a good thing. The final output of the vast majority of computer applications is not the printer. Certainly not the output of a web browser!
It must be nice being in Steve’s chair - Apple releases an ugly, buggy, insecure, flagrantly standards-violating application for Windows, far worse than any of Microsoft’s alpha or preview releases, and gets free PR and a pat on the back for it.
I have been a mac user since 1984 but I am forced to use the old mac OS 9 (which has readable font rendering) because OSX gives me such bad eyestrain that I simply can’t use it. If you can’t actually read the screen because it gives you blurred vision and constant headaches even when you are not looking at the screen - what’s the point? So who cares what the font looks like as long as you can read it.
Not everybody is affected by this problem but a significant number of people are. It’s to do with the fact that with the different coloured pixels in each anti-aliased character or letter, some people’s brains just don’t know where to focus. If the character is composed of solid black or monochrome pixels no problem for the brain or vision. (To see the different coloured pixels in the font on OSX use the zoom tool).
I have lobbied Apple about this to no avail.
For an article and lots of comments by Apple users who have had the same problem as myself see http://www.atpm.com/12.01/paradigm.shtml
In Linux, you can turn not only the text antialiasing on and off but also the text hinting. Check this out:
http://cleanstick.net/jason/junk/font-hinting-demo/full-hinting.png
http://cleanstick.net/jason/junk/font-hinting-demo/slight-hinting.png
http://cleanstick.net/jason/junk/font-hinting-demo/no-hinting.png
Feels a lot like OSX and Windows’ font rendering differences. And without antialiasing, the need for hinting vector fonts for displays is a lot more obvious:
http://cleanstick.net/jason/junk/font-hinting-demo/no-hinting-no-aa.png
http://cleanstick.net/jason/junk/font-hinting-demo/full-hinting-no-aa.png
The whole glasses wearing thing is irrelevant - with or without glasses the font on OSX is blurry for the reasons I explained above.
And Scattershot is absolutely right - there is no adequate way to turn off the anti-aliasing. And thanks for drawing attention again (which I did earlier) to the http://www.atpm.com/12.01/paradigm.shtml page
Just to add to this - the very least Apple could do is give users a choice - then all the people who like blurry font could be happy and the other people who just want to be able to read the screen will be happy as well.
Perhaps Mac could just release 2 versions of their OS or have settings that can allow you to choose which one you want.
@ Rabid Wolverine:
There was (1988) and still is a platform that used Postscript (PS) for its display in an attempt to get true WYSYWYG. In fact it was called Display Postscript (DPS), a full implementation of PS for displays and printers, developed jointly by Adobe and NeXT: NeXTSTEP. When Apple acquired NeXT, to become the core of OS X, licensing issues with Adobe concerning DPS (and some concern with how “heavy” DPS was) led Apple to go another route. So they started with the freely available PDF spec (simplistically, PS without the programming capability and the more esoteric features nobody used) and embedded it into Quartz 2D. So Mac OS X, a direct descendant of NeXTSTEP, still has that DNA. Much of what you see rendered on the screen is, again simplistically, PDF and strives to be WYSYWYG within the resolution limits of displays. The same engine does the rendering for printing. It’s one of the reasons that it is easy for any app that can print to print to PDF on Mac OS X without 3rd party apps. The apps get it for "free’ because it is built into the OS.
You also have to remember the history of Apple and NeXT. Apple created desktop publishing with the Mac and the Laserwriter. A very large segment of its customers in publishing and graphics design demand(ed) as much fidelity between screen and print as possible. Apple still hews to that philosophy. And I imagine that if they were to change it there would be ruckus and rioting in the streets among these customers. What jobs couldn’t do at Apple–embed Postscript as a screen renderer–he did at NeXT. And in one of the ironies of the industry, came back to Apple and made it the next NeXT. Or NeXT was really the “Big Mac”, a UNIX-based Mac workstation and the centerpiece of the Mac Office project Jobs had started which was killed once he was booted from Apple.
I use both the Mac and Windows (heck I still use my NeXT Cube once in a while), Solaris, FreeBSD and other flavors of UNIX. I prefer the Mac for everyday work mostly because it allows me to do what I used to need several computers to accomplish. But, I use whatever is most appropriate for the task at hand. As for my preferences, I do notice the difference coming back after long stints on Windows. On balance I prefer OS X rendering because of its fidelity to print. Now all we need are 200-300 DPI displays and the whole argument becomes largely moot.
Give me bitmapped font any day - nice and clear - not fuzzy or out of focus and no rainbow halos. Result: no headaches, no blurry vision, no eyestrain -hurray!
Also give me CRT over LCD (also fuzzy) any day as well. Much more versatile technology -even if it weighs a ton and takes up your whole desk.
I’m still using good old bitmapped OS 9 (I have no choice) on the Mac and Windoze with the anti-aliasing switched off.
What all this discussion really boils down to is that users really need to be provided with a choice by computer designers - those of us who want austere bitmapped font should be allowed to have it and those who like fuzzy illegible extravaganzas should be allowed to have that as well.
Oh how I love how one can’t claim to prefer something from Apple without being called a mindless zealot who can’t think for himself. Aaaanyway…
As a long time Linux user I was there when X graphical toolkits (ie. what provides UI elements) switched from old crappy server-side rendering to nice and modern client-side FreeType rendering. At first I was horrified. “This crap is supposed to be better?! It’s all blurry! My eyes hurt!” I cried. But then I got used to it, and even started to like it. I guess my eyes got used to the anti-aliasing. And when I got a Mac this year, I was pleased to see that Apple does it even better.
It’s all so subjective, really. If I had stayed with Windows all those years, I’d surely hate Apple’s rendering too, because it’s DIFFERENT from what I’d be used to. (tip: the key word here is in uppercase letters) Some people claim Cleartype is easier to read, and I don’t agree. They say everything is too bold, but that’s not how I see it since it has always been like this for me all those years. But hey! that’s just my opinion. No reason to insult members of the other school of thought…
I do understand Windows users being disgusted by their Safari for Windows experience. It was completely idiotic of Apple to shove a foreign font rendering on people like that. Even I was shocked when I tried it this weekend. I prefer Apple’s rendering, but under Windows it’s just plain wrong because it’s different than everything else, which tends to annoy the eye regardless of which rendering method you prefer.
At first I thought this was a joke. I think the Apple version looks way better. But I use a Mac and so I’m used to it I guess. The IE7 text looks really thin and pixely. I don’t wear glasses.
I like Apple’s font rendering better. It’s softer and nicer looking in my opinion. The way Windows renders fonts seems way too harsh and artificial.
I am always take interest in Apple and I am using Apple in different ways for quite so long so great work Apple.
Great article about the Windows vs OS X font rendering differences…
