Apple adopts new ‘San Francisco’ font for its upcoming smartwatch

Apple has adopted a new system font for its upcoming Apple Watch: San Francisco.

 

The font is designed "specifically for legibility on Apple Watch," Apple said in a page for developers.

 

"The system font was designed specifically for legibility on Apple Watch. At large sizes, the font’s slightly condensed letters are set tight to take up less horizontal space. But at small sizes, they are spaced more loosely and have bigger apertures in glyphs like ‘a’ and ‘e’ to make these easier to read at a glance," it said.

 

It also said punctuation is proportionally larger when the font gets smaller, while as text size changes, Apple Watch dynamically switches between fonts.

 

On the other hand, Apple suggested to developers to use high contrast colors for text to make them more legible.

 

Apple also asked developers to avoid using color to show interactivity.

 

Color blindness

 

Apple also reminded developers to be aware of color blindness.

 

"Most color blind people have difficulty distinguishing red from green. Test your app to make sure that there are no places where you use red and green as the only way to distinguish between two states or values (some image-editing software includes tools that can help you proof for color-blindness)," it said.

 

It also reminded them to be conscious of cultural differences in regarding different colors.

 

"Everyone sees color differently, and many cultures differ in how they assign meanings to colors. Spend time to research how your use of color might be perceived in other countries and cultures. As much as possible, you want to be sure that the colors in your app send the appropriate message," it said.

 

Dynamic type

 

Developers were encouraged to make sure their apps adopt Dynamic Type.

 

"If you use the built-in text styles, you get Dynamic Type support for free. If you use custom fonts, you must do some work to adopt the feature," it said.

 

Free font

 

Tech site The Next Web said Apple is giving away San Francisco, a sans serif typeface, for free.

 

San Francisco comes in two styles, “Regular” and “Display.”

 

"Whether by coincidence or intentionally, Apple had another font called San Francisco previously that was one of the first fonts to ship with the Macintosh," it added. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News