I have to say, that Android Design minisite is full of useful nuggets of information on app design. It's worth a look regardless of your thoughts on Roboto.
The Android Font: Roboto
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#12I'm not a Roboto fan. I think Gruber sums it up the best: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/font_hipsters
Gruber's post contains nothing substantive except for "The criticism is simply that Roboto is ungainly, homely, unharmonious." The remainder of the post is a diatribe that only succeeds in saying "nobody else likes it either."
Well, he clearly felt that three adjectives to describe the font was sufficient. I would have to agree. Of course everything on Daring Fireball is normally in the context of how a certain topic pertains to Apple which the rest of the article covers succinctly.
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no idea how much you know about type design, but I get the sense that the vast majority of people disparaging Roboto don't actually know shit about typography, and are just parroting what's been said by a handful of bloggers (many of whom also aren't particularly well versed). If a lot of these guys were asked to rate a bunch of unnamed fonts without the benefit of the internet to tell them what they think abo…
John Gruber is extremely well versed in typography. He talks at great length about typefaces in his podcast and has worked for Bare Bones Software on BBEdit, a well known text editor. I would tend to trust his judgements on this matter.
How about you trust your own eyes and feelings about this sort of things?
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#14It's worth noticing that this font is licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0. So it's ok to use it in personal or commercial projects (by including a copy of the license an propper attribution). The font can be found in the folder data/fonts on the Android SDK 4.0 / r14, and also the Readme file that states the license.
I don't understand why they haven't added it to the Google Web Fonts directory yet.
You can already:
http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:regular,medium...;
See this post:
https://plus.google.com/108761828584265913206/posts/JyBRu1gs...
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no idea how much you know about type design, but I get the sense that the vast majority of people disparaging Roboto don't actually know shit about typography, and are just parroting what's been said by a handful of bloggers (many of whom also aren't particularly well versed). If a lot of these guys were asked to rate a bunch of unnamed fonts without the benefit of the internet to tell them what they think abo…
John Gruber is extremely well versed in typography. He talks at great length about typefaces in his podcast and has worked for Bare Bones Software on BBEdit, a well known text editor. I would tend to trust his judgements on this matter.
Gruber does seem to know a lot, thought I'm not sure that talking about type on your podcast or working for a company that develops a text editor exactly proves that. That said, he's clearly got a snarky agenda about Android, which makes me take anything he writes about it with a grain of salt.
What annoys me is not so much Gruber or other bloggers having an opinion, it's the followers who take what they write as fact. Roboto probably isn't a font for the ages, but it seems to do what it set out to do very well. The people who worked on it aren't idiots.
Android has its issues, but I'm sick of the little cabal of Apple writers who portray it and everything surrounding it as a trainwreck.
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#16I'm not a Roboto fan. I think Gruber sums it up the best: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/font_hipsters
JC almighty.
Why do so many people need to have such STRONG OPINIONS about everything that isn't what they happen to own?
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
John Gruber is extremely well versed in typography. He talks at great length about typefaces in his podcast and has worked for Bare Bones Software on BBEdit, a well known text editor. I would tend to trust his judgements on this matter.
How about you trust your own eyes and feelings about this sort of things?
All I did was mention that I agreed with Gruber not that he swayed me one way or the other. I think the fonts in ICS along with the rest of the Android interface is just awful. And obviously saying that in a thread which would appeal to an android user would go over like a lead ballon. Just thinking for myself.
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#18I'm not a Roboto fan. I think Gruber sums it up the best: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/font_hipsters
JC almighty. Why do so many people need to have such STRONG OPINIONS about everything that isn't what they happen to own?
Well, if you're talking about Gruber, having opinions is pretty much his job.
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#19I'm not a Roboto fan. I think Gruber sums it up the best: http://daringfireball.net/2011/10/font_hipsters
I've been using an Android phone recently after being iOS-only for the last two years and it's really opened my eyes to the agenda of people like Gruber. Don't expect him to give any Google product a fair shake. His recent gushing review of the hideous skeuomorphisms of iPhoto for iOS demonstrates what passes for tech journalism these days.
Re: The Android Font: Roboto
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
John Gruber is extremely well versed in typography. He talks at great length about typefaces in his podcast and has worked for Bare Bones Software on BBEdit, a well known text editor. I would tend to trust his judgements on this matter.
Gruber does seem to know a lot, thought I'm not sure that talking about type on your podcast or working for a company that develops a text editor exactly proves that. That said, he's clearly got a snarky agenda about Android, which makes me take anything he writes about it with a grain of salt. What annoys me is not so much Gruber or other bloggers having an opinion, it's the followers who take what they write as fac…
Gruber knows a lot according to Gruber. And his legions of fans.