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Comment by happy_dino | Hacker News Reader

> Is it true that iOS uses a different font renderer than Mac OS?

Yes, iOS uses (parts of) FreeType. Imagine the shitstorm if they shipped their fuzzy, washed-out default rendering! The issue is that most people buying smartphones are not die-hard Apple fans like the buyers of their other offerings, so the font rentering would be pretty hard to sell.

> I thought that the fonts on an iPhone looked pretty good actually.

That's because FreeType (with the right patches and settings) is already pretty much the best font renderer (with a few exceptions).

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So FreeType font hinting functionality was disabled for years because software patents held by Apple, and now Apple is using FreeType on iOS. Amazing.

I live in the EU and I've been using freetype-freeworld package for years before the patents expired. but still... amazing :)

EDIT: patents have expired

Fuzziness is subjective. iOS uses a similar font rendering method to OS X, without subpixel rendering. See: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/24/a-closer-look-at-...

Agreed. OSX's font rendering in my opinion is superior to Ubuntu and other Linux distros. It is subjective though - after all, some people claim to prefer ClearType.

> Yes, iOS uses (parts of) FreeType.

Do you have a reference for this rather surprising claim?

I only see it mentioned on FreeType’s website, with no details:

“Some products which use FreeType for rendering fonts on screen or on paper, either exclusively or partially: [...] iOS, Apple's mobile operating system for iPhones and iPads”

http://www.freetype.org/

iOS (née iPones OS) never used subpixel rendering, and since the introduction of HiDPI it isn’t needed anymore either. I can imagine that using parts of Freetype instead of using the whole of OS X’s Quartz would’ve made the code for iOS more compact.

http://bjango.com/articles/subpixeltext/

Given that all of the iPhone models and many of the iPad models have HiDPI screens nowadays, I doubt Apple will be using Adobe’s extension, since it’s mostly a problem with low resolution displays.

There is a marked difference between letter shapes rendered with FreeType and with Quartz.

Judging by the letter shapes, I would say it's highly likely iOS uses the same renderer as OS X, at least for common fonts like Helvetica Neue.

However, I don't know if I've seen any CFF fonts. Perhaps this is where FreeType would come in?

Adobe’s solution is mostly interesting for OpenType/CFF and PostScript fonts. iOS’ system fonts are TrueType, so this would only come into play in websites, third party apps, and PDFs that use embedded fonts. Besides, iOS doesn’t use hinting embedded in fonts.

http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2010/12/the-benefits-of-...

http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2011/09/postscript-comes...

“There is a marked difference between letter shapes rendered with FreeType and with Quartz.”

Oh, definitely. FreeType has always looked like crap (to me) and iOS never did, so I don’t believe iOS’ font renderer is 100% FreeType.

From what I've experienced, I find iOS and Android font rendering is equal in quality, and Android uses freetype so I wouldn't be surprised at iOS using the same.

So, since you are clearly a very technically deep and insightful person with lots and lots of industry experience, you are stating with great authority that OS X does not use FreeType to rasterize fonts. Interesting. :)

But finding the right patches and settings is hard.

The good thing is that it only has to be figured out once, then the information can be spread almost freely ... there is something called “the internet” which excels at this.

"the internet" also excels at spreading misinformation or retaining information that once was correct but no longer is for extended periods of time.

Doesn't Ubuntu and other out-of-the-box desktop friendly distros come with good font settings from the get go?

I use Arch Linux but even here it's not much of a hassle given that there is a very informative wiki page not to mention packages with good configuration presets (infinality).

> Doesn't Ubuntu and other out-of-the-box desktop friendly distros come with good font settings from the get go?

Yes, exactly!

Try using Infinality (http://www.infinality.net/blog/). I am using it on Fedora 18 and loving it!

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