Apple Reportedly Bringing Apple Watch Font to iOS 9, OS X 10.11

Apple plans on refreshing iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 with the new Apple Watch Font, San Francisco -- according to sources that spoke to 9to5mac.

Apple-designed San Francisco will replace Helvetica Neue which launched with iOS 7 and OS X Yosemite. Apple developed San Francisco specifically for legibility, which first appeared on the Apple Watch last September. The font reportedly scales more dynamically which allows it to maintain clarity and legibility -- regardless of the size.

According to the sources familiar with the decision to move to the San Francisco type face on iOS and OS X, Apple higher-ups also believe that the new look will serve to refresh its familiar operating systems, helping iOS and OS X to avoid becoming stale. However, some Apple engineers have told us that they are not fans of the new font, which may look particularly rough on non-Retina screens.


Installing a new system wide font is an arduous process that requires lots of tweaks to bundled applications and extensive QA testing. Multiple Apple employees reported that daily builds of both OS X 10.11 and iOS 9 began to include the new font towards the end of March.

Apple plans to reveal both iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 to developers at WWDC in June.

What do you think of the new font? Do you prefer Helvetica Neue or San Francisco?

[Mockups of what Apple Watch Font on iPhone could look like] If you're jailbroken, you can get the new font here.