Mac Users' Internet Experience to Retain Same Fonts

thefickler sent in this article that opens, "Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts. Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts," and are therefore widely used by Internet developers."

Comments

Huh?

[CrAlt]

Ive never noticed a difference from Firefox on my OSX machine and Firefox on my linux laptop. What sites are really using MS only fonts?

You aren't a designer

[_merlin]

You, like most users, are not a designer, and don't notice the subtle differences between the proprietary fonts used on a Mac and the free (as in speech and beer) fonts used on Linux. You probably think Arial and Helvetica look the same, too. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and just highlights one reason that most people won't really care whether this license is extended or not - most people just want legible text so they can get the information.

On the other hand, I am a pedant. I pay close attention to fonts. I notice when a single character has been substituted because the specified font didn't have a glyph for a particular codepoint. But I don't care too much for this license, either. I hate Arial with a passion, and wish my Mac would substitute Helvetica, since Arial was actually designed as a Helvetica clone that cost less to license. Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness. Courier New is just plain ugly. I want my fixed-pitch text rendered in Monaco.

So all in all, I don't see how the extension of this license is a good thing for anyone.

Re:You aren't a designer

[mrchaotica]

Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness.

Hey, I like Verdana (aside from the fact that it renders larger at a given point size than other fonts). Just because it may have been designed for some particular purpose doesn't mean it isn't pretty!

Re:You aren't a designer

[grahamd0]

IAANAD (I am also not a designer), in fact, I'm a developer, so designers are both my life's blood and my mortal enemies (oh, what tragedy!).

Is it possible to explain what is so offensive about arial other than it being common and Microsoftish? I can spot the difference, and I like helvetica, but it's just honestly not that big of a deal for me.

This strikes me as one of those "menus belong on the top-left of the screen!" type of arguments, where the person making the argument claims that it's an objective statement of fact, and one can make an equally logical argument against it. Indeed, merely being able to say, "I prefer Y" makes a statement of "X is objectively better" somewhat dubious.

I'm really interested in hearing, specifically, what makes arial an unacceptable substitute. In your post, you don't actually give any single reason why arial is so offensive other than it being inexpensive, which, IMHO, is not valid in and of itself unless you're a snob attempting to appeal to other snobs.

I don't meant to imply that you're a snob. I'm sure you have good reasons for making that statement, and I would genuinely like to hear them.

See the difference

[QuantumG]

Here's a little page I whipped up with the different fonts from five different combinations of browser and OS.

Personally, I've never really been able to tell the difference between one font or another :)

You aren't a small handheld device.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Verdana was designed to be legible on low-resolution displays. Displays have higher resolutions now, and font rendering technologies have improved. Verdana has outlived its usefulness."

Let me introduce you to this new fangled device known as...a smart phone.

A question to the world:

[pizzach]

Has anyone noticed that when you use a Mac for a while, Windows fonts suddenly feel really pixelated with Cleartype?

Then if you use a PC for a while, when you come back to a Mac the fonts feel really blury?

Re:Why was the project terminated?

[l33t.g33k]

Yes, once installed, it's available to all programs on the PC. However, many programs (especially on Linux, such as CodeWeavers/CrossOver Office and the installer for Debian) were automatically installing the fonts if they weren't already there. While that's convenient for the end user, MS felt slighted!