Macs look terrible

First of all I love most things Mac. Have for years and had one fo the first 128k Macs off the assembly line backin the day. I have "Mac'd" all my Windows machines with Apple peripherals, monitors etc... HOWEVER

One thing kills me about Macs and it is a major thing to me and that is the on screen "font smoothing" that Apple uses vs. Microsoft. It just bugs me that Apples text is "fuzzy" and it is on purpose that it is whereas Microsoft's clear type is crisp and clear and is far superior over time. Expesially after you foot that bill for the $7-800 Apple 24" monitor. Why buy such a nice computer and monitor for it to be fuzzy.

I have maintained this for years and Apple fanboys have flamed me and have told me I'm nuts. First of all I would be classified as one of those fanboys, Apple is a great American company, I love that fact that OS X is superior than Vista and Apple deserves greater market share.

For those who think I am nuts (and maybe it is less now that you can run Parallels and see things "side by side" and see how Apple fuzzes their text)
take alook at the facts:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html

It is almost a deal breaker for me having to look at crystal clear XP all day and fuzzy OS X at home.

Well, I do agree with you. The apple words do look "thicker" but I dont think its a big deal. I personally do not care. Although the windows version does seem easier to read. But the Apple redering seems to just fit better with the interface. I know that sounds dumb, but it would really through off the "feel" of the OS if it had the same thin, block type writing as Windows.

What font smoothening? I just use it the way it came and now I have no problems with reading or anything. Just have to get used to it I guess.

And I don't notice any difference between the Windows and Mac in that screenshot, although I know that there is in the real world.

misleading topic name.

thanks for wasting precious seconds of my life.

Kay... you have a valid opinion although I disagree, but I still have two questions, One, why are you telling us this? If you just had to get it out than okay that's fine, but otherwise, why do we care? Two, why is this in the switcher hangout? You don't appear to be a switcher and this has no need or purpose in the Switcher forum...

I disagree, I find font rendering on Macs to be far superior to ClearType not for aesthetic reasons, but for how it reads. When using a Windows computer for a couple of hours, I would always experience eye strain. When I got my Mac, I can sit in front of it for the same amount of time with no eye strain.

So even if OS X renders fonts differently from how they should actually look, I find it superior simply because it causes less eye strain.

I honestly never noticed a difference, is that bad?

i have worked on windows based computers my entire life until about a month ago when I bought my first macbook pro and to be honest I don't see much of a difference. If you really get technical, there is a small difference, but not nearly enough to concern me (even as a graphic design, and appearance is everything). I think macs have beautiful displays and the font is far from unreadable.

As a guy who is a colorphile and who notices the most subtlest of anything visual, I never even noticed this.

ecodisk said:

I honestly never noticed a difference, is that bad?

Click to expand...

I don't notice anything either. Only when I look at that link the original poster posted. That's just being picky though.

Yeah I've never noticed either, but oh well, he or she probably just has better eyes than all of us :/

Z4MC said:

For those who think I am nuts (and maybe it is less now that you can run Parallels and see things "side by side" and see how Apple fuzzes their text)
take alook at the facts:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html

Click to expand...

The fact is, it's a matter of preference, but as the article says the roots are in Apple's background in DTP. Steve Jobs once said that MS have no taste, and went on to say that the fonts that Apple use were inspired by beautiful books, something MS would never have if it were not for the Mac.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upzKj-1HaKw

The article is right, that MS have a practical approach to things, but if you ever print anything from Word, especially on a PC, it looks awful and flat. The blurry text attack is somewhat overstated, because it's barely noticed on high rez screens in day to day activity. But again, that's entirely subjective.

I had a real problem with this when I first switched too. I felt at the time that the Apple approach to font smoothing was more or less a cross I had to bear to get all the rest of that Apple goodness. You will see this reflected in my Linux to Mac Switchers Guide in the section on Font rendering.

Eventually I got over it. I work with Windows and Mac OS X every day, and now I just accept that they are different. Some days I prefer the Mac manner of font rendering, some days I prefer the Windows manner of font rendering.

Macs are different - Viva la difference!

Um yeah OK so. ??? The sky is pink but i like it black.

The real word for font smoothing is font anti-aliasing.

^^ While that may be...

What exactly am I looking for in that picture?

That macs call anti-aliasing (what I'm used to saying) to "font smoothing."

Eric559 said:

What exactly am I looking for in that picture?

Click to expand...

Goobi just wants to publicly point out what a dumb post I made earlier. But I persist in saying that the real term for font smoothing is font antialiasing.

Apple must have put that font smoothing business in the system preferences to avoid all those what's antialiasing mean ? posts in Apple Discussions.

MHC is correct. The process of smoothing lines is called anti-aliasing. Anybody here who is a gamer will be able to attest to this fact.