There are a whole lot of rumors flying round a few huge iOS and macOS redesign coming this yr, maybe as a distraction to the continued points round Apple Intelligence. And whereas I’m sport for a contemporary coat of paint throughout the software program I take advantage of each single day, I’ve one plea whereas Apple’s at it: Please, for the love of god, make the Notes app render the letter “a” correctly.
Let me again up a bit. Apple first launched the San Francisco typeface with the primary Apple Watch in 2015; a number of years later it turned the default on principally each machine Apple sells. The textual content you see in Messages, Apple Music, Maps and plenty of different system apps are all totally different San Francisco fonts, and for probably the most half the a number of variations all really feel constant and cohesive.
However, in some unspecified time in the future within the final seven or eight years I seen one thing odd within the Apple Notes app. The font seems the identical as the opposite San Francisco fonts, however one thing simply felt “off.” It took eternally earlier than I put my finger on it: the lowercase “a” renders in a different way within the Notes app than it does wherever else throughout your complete system.
You see, the Notes app makes use of a “single storey a,” the type of “a” that most individuals use when writing by hand. That’s the one first-party app, so far as I can inform, the place you’ll discover a single-storey a. The remainder of the time, it makes use of the double-storey a (simply as you’ll see on this web site and nearly all over the place else a lowercase a is used as of late outdoors of handwriting).
To be clear, this doesn’t matter even just a little bit. Actually, the fully inconsequential and random nature of this example might be why it irks me so. A part of me is glad I discovered precisely what was throwing me off, as a result of for years Notes simply regarded flawed in a manner that I discovered inconceivable to explain. Now not less than I do know what my mind was reacting to.
In the future lately we have been having a full of life dialogue about fonts within the Engadget Slack, which triggered me to deliver up this thriller. My colleagues each agreed that this was weird and in addition thought I used to be a little bit of a lunatic for spending this a lot time occupied with a single character in a single app. This, in fact, drove me to obtain and dig by way of all of Apple’s system fonts and their variations to search out the dreaded “Latin small letter Alpha,” or α, that our resident Greek Cypriot Aaron Souppouris recommended I seek for. Certainly, that’s what pops up in Notes as a substitute of the standard “a.” It’s not even one of many font variants, so far as I can inform. [Ed. note: Nathan did no other work during this time.]
Though it is a ridiculous factor to consider, I need to know what’s occurring right here! How did this occur? Who made this resolution, and for what cause? Perhaps it’s as a result of the Notes app initially used a skeuomorphic “Marker Felt” type of textual content that emulated handwriting — utilizing the only storey “a” is probably a nod to how most individuals really handwrite the letter. Or, maybe, it’s simply one thing that slipped by way of the cracks years in the past and hasn’t been value altering as a result of most individuals most likely haven’t consciously seen the distinction (you’re welcome).
Regardless of the cause, I certain would adore it if Apple unified issues with the iOS 19 (and corresponding macOS) redesign. I usually discover the default Apple font to be simply positive, although individuals actually have their very own very strongly held opinions about typography. But when I’m being trustworthy, I’d additionally most likely miss that oddball α — it’s at all times enjoyable to have an unsolved thriller to ponder over, regardless of how inconsequential.
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