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Pixel Perfect

daringfireball.net

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Re: Pixel Perfect

#41

Post by arrrg »

cageface wrote: post #35
arrrg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he? What are you referring to? The Mountain Lion presentation? Apple invited loads of journalists to that, they just also included Gruber there.

http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion And instead of a room full of writers, journalists, and analysts, it was just me, Schiller, and two others from Apple — Brian Croll from product marketing and Bill Evans from PR.

Sure. And? What’s your point? Apple met separately with loads of journalists. I don’t see anything special about how they treated Gruber.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#42

Post by bobbles »

cageface wrote: post #35
arrrg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he? What are you referring to? The Mountain Lion presentation? Apple invited loads of journalists to that, they just also included Gruber there.

http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion And instead of a room full of writers, journalists, and analysts, it was just me, Schiller, and two others from Apple — Brian Croll from product marketing and Bill Evans from PR.

..and from the very same article:

"It’s Phil Schiller, spending an entire week on the East Coast, repeating this presentation over and over to a series of audiences of one."

He wasn't the only one getting the special treatment, they were communicating to tech journalists.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#43

Post by mcantelon »

msutherl wrote: post #19
SCdF wrote: post #15

So more pixels is great. Is it really that great? I feel like there are people who look at their devices and people who look at what's displayed on their devices. For me, text is text is text. I'm looking at it, not so I can enjoy how crisp it is (or isn't), but so I can consume those words and get them inside my head. I find (I've played around with high DPI devices) that while they do look nice, the niceness is qui…

Some people make a point of appreciating the small joys of life. Others do not. Much effort and attention is lost on the latter.

Some people focus on the substance rather than the style. Others do not. Much effort and attention is lost on the latter.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#44

Post by mark-r »

colmvp wrote: post #36
jcampbell1 wrote: post #27

I find it quite surprising that the author is so passionate about typefaces, but serves his own blog in Verdana. Good thing it is not called JaringJireJall.net [1] That being said, I really think the days of sans fonts are close to over. 10 years from now, we will all be reading on 300 dpi screens and taste in typography will return to being the dominate feature of design. I can't wait until I can read the Economist…

"sans fonts are close to over" I'm curious as to why you believe this. Some of the most versatile fonts are sans-serif, i.e. Helvetica, Gotham, DIN, Gill Sans, Futura, and Franklin Gothic.

Serif fonts have been under-represented for years, because our displays just aren't good enough to do them justice. When the pendulum swings, it always swings too far - look for serif fonts to become the next big thing.

Personally I think this prediction is a little premature because the retina displays aren't widespread yet. I've got my eye on Open Sans for the near future.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#45

Post by lloeki »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #14

> Think about that: a laptop with no performance tradeoff compared to a high-end desktop. It helps if that high end desktop hasn't been updated in two years . For CPU performance, laptops lagging a couple of years behind desktops is more or less business as usual.

Still, we're talking about a Xeon here, not your typical desktop-variant Core Something. It was a powerhouse.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#46

Post by LoganCale »

sbierwagen wrote: post #40
jmduke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in this. As someone who doesn't pay that much attention to typography (beyond the obvious 'Papyrus is bad' stuff) what makes individual typefaces preferable over a standard typeface for all similarly structured content? (Besides branding, that is.)

It's pure marketing. There's no objective, measurable difference.

Yes there is. Certain typefaces are objectively easier to read than others, and some work better for certain content than others. Some are best for body text, some are best for headlines, etc. Some are optimized for low resolution screens, some for print (and as such work well on high resolution screens).

Re: Pixel Perfect

#47

Post by mcmire »

I kind of had the same thought too, as I walked through the Apple Store today and took a gander at some of the Retina MBP's. I thought: in as soon as 5 years, people are going to look at the pre-Retina MBP's and wonder, how did we ever live with 160 DPI displays? All of these jaggedies, this unsharp text, these blurry textures in iCal -- all this ugliness that you have to squint your eyes to see. Who would want that?

And for a moment I regretted I'd gotten an Air instead of a rMBP. But then I realized... what I have is good enough. It is. It's great. And there will be better products to come. And I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

But it is interesting to think about a future world where pixels are antiquities, merely "remember when's".

Re: Pixel Perfect

#48

Post by lloeki »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #27

I find it quite surprising that the author is so passionate about typefaces, but serves his own blog in Verdana. Good thing it is not called JaringJireJall.net [1] That being said, I really think the days of sans fonts are close to over. 10 years from now, we will all be reading on 300 dpi screens and taste in typography will return to being the dominate feature of design. I can't wait until I can read the Economist…

Possibly because at 11px Verdana renders nicely. I guess at the time he came up with the design, there was not really an alternative to use CoreFonts, and this was one of the types that rendered fine at that size. FWIW headings are in Gill at 17px, and I don't find the balance unpleasant.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#49

Post by Splines »

nessus42 wrote: post #34
SCdF wrote: post #15

So more pixels is great. Is it really that great? I feel like there are people who look at their devices and people who look at what's displayed on their devices. For me, text is text is text. I'm looking at it, not so I can enjoy how crisp it is (or isn't), but so I can consume those words and get them inside my head. I find (I've played around with high DPI devices) that while they do look nice, the niceness is qui…

> So more pixels is great. Is it really that great? If it reduces eyestrain, then it is worth every penny! I don't know if there is any evidence that it does, but it certainly seems likely that sharper text would reduce eyestrain. I certainly can read tiny text on my Retina iPhone much more easily than I could on my previous iPhone. Otherwise, it's worth it if it gives you enough more joy, and not if it doesn't. Some…

> Otherwise, it's worth it if it gives you enough more joy, and not if it doesn't.

That's the point. For many people it just doesn't matter, they can't tell the difference without focusing on it.

I'm typing this on an HP dv6 laptop that I really like. It came with the hardware I wanted at a price I was willing and able to pay. Does it have a retina display? Hardly. But considering my eyes are shot: it's night-time now, my eyes are tired, and I've taken my glasses off to give them a rest and the text on the page is ever-so-slightly blurry at this distance, having a retina display wouldn't do me much help. I can't see the dots at it stands anyway.

Re: Pixel Perfect

#50

Post by panacea »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #27

I find it quite surprising that the author is so passionate about typefaces, but serves his own blog in Verdana. Good thing it is not called JaringJireJall.net [1] That being said, I really think the days of sans fonts are close to over. 10 years from now, we will all be reading on 300 dpi screens and taste in typography will return to being the dominate feature of design. I can't wait until I can read the Economist…

Un-anti-aliased (aliased?) Verdana at a certain size (11 or 12 point? Can't recall) was the very best pixellated optimised font for the web when Gruber designed his blog.

He hasn't redesigned since.

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