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Comment by cypher543 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a typography expert, so this looks like a hundred other fonts I've seen. Why does every OS need its own custom font?

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One thing that occurs to me is how "sticky" it might help make your product. Today I downloaded the new version of the JetBrains python IDE, and I'm a longtime SublimeText user. My first reaction was to be really uncomfortable (not surprising.. it's a pretty huge new tool for doing something I'm very familiar with)... however, I was suprised at how much comfort returned once I was seeing code in my familiar font again.

I wonder if this is a useful tactic in making users of your platform continue to feel especially comfortable with it, by making other platforms feel particularly uncomfortable.

Seems like that would only be a positive thing for the market leader. Everybody else would be bringing more people over into a less comfortable experience. Market leaders don't want to lose people...new entrants primarily want to bring new people in.

Firefox OS doesn't even really exist yet. Obviously, they need to bring new people in, and want people to be comfortable.

Imagine Erik Spiekermann commenting here or on LtU how all programming languages look the same...

At my work, one of the astronomers once sent a feature request that ended with this sentence: "I am not a software engineer, but I know enough about programming to know that this must be easy enough to do."

It may be a case of grass being greener on the other side but working with astronomers sounds pretty cool.

I work on web stuff and get requests like that all the time.

This particular user is the exception. For the most part, they're pretty understanding of how overworked we are. They tend to be content with workarounds and don't expect good performance. This is mostly because they all write code themselves and their own code is pretty lousy. To them, what we do is just a means to an end and they're not interested in appreciating the journey, as it were.

On the other hand, this classic xkcd is occasionally accurate. You get a few of these obnoxious ones from time to time: http://xkcd.com/793/

But was he right? Was the feature easy? :)

It amounted to changing an architectural assumption. If she'd suggested it four years earlier it would have been easy. :)

Branding is one. They can't use a typeface another commercial OS used.

Also type designers keep making new fonts with tiny differences from older fonts because the older fonts were already used a lot and don't look fresh.

Just like programmers make new frameworks/libraries and using those is the cool thing to do.

>Branding is one. They can't use a typeface another commercial OS used.

Well, if the license permits it they can.

iOS doesn’t use a custom font, it uses Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, and Avenir. There’s no reason other OSes can’t just adopt an existing font to use system-wide. For instance, Futura is still up for grabs.

Another font that isn’t used anymore, but which was custom designed for a WebOS, is Font Bureau’s Prelude. I like that one a lot better than the choices all of the other platforms have made: http://palmwebos.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/webos-font-p...

Using an existing font for the sake of using it is << creating a new font and open sourcing it. More choice is good (especially with something like fonts) and open sourcing it is just icing on the cake. Everyone wins. PS: Thanks for the tip on Futura, I had not heard of it before.

I understand how creating a ‘new’ font and open sourcing it makes sense for Ubuntu and Firefox, where lots of unpaid workers need to share assets. I don’t see how it would benefit companies like Apple and Microsoft. Back in the early 80s, Apple commissioned a custom version of ITC Garamond to suit its needs better. Bitstream named it ’Apple Garamond’. As with many proprietary corporate fonts, that font was never released or open sourced, in large part because it was an integral to Apple’s brand identity.

Not to my taste — looks really stodgy and conservative to me.

Well, WebOS was created in 2008, so that may have something to do with it. IMO, the font itself could easily work in a more modern, flatter UI.

I mean the font, not the overall design. While I admit I can't rule out the possibility that the design on the left side of the image unconsciously influenced my reaction, I tried hard to only look at the font.

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