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iTunes & Helvetica: Cast your vote
Posted by Chris Dean in
29 Nov 2012 — 5:25pm
29 Nov 2012 — 5:25pm
iTunes 11.0 uses Helvetica for its user interface. Cast your vote:
1 = Strongly dislike
2 = Dislike
3 = Neutral
4 = Like
5 = Strongly like
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29 Nov 2012 — 8:54pm
But on the positive side the interface is cleaner now and it seems faster.
29 Nov 2012 — 8:57pm
Do you have a numerical vote?
29 Nov 2012 — 9:41pm
Just installed iTunes on windows. I stopped using it when it became very slow and the audio quality sucked. I like the new interface(But I don't think it uses Helvetica on windows). I would give a 4. I like Zune interface but the fonts suck.
30 Nov 2012 — 5:36am
2
30 Nov 2012 — 5:42am
my vote has to be 3.
... Helvetica being so completely neutral
30 Nov 2012 — 6:32am
2
30 Nov 2012 — 8:05am
I'll give it a 3. Normally I don't care for Helvetica much as it seems dated and overused, but in this case — perhaps it's the small point size — it doesn't bother me.
30 Nov 2012 — 9:46am
I honestly aim to share these results with Apple. How hard could it be to give the user the ability to select from a few different typefaces? Helvetica? Really? Just when we thought it had gone away, BAM! there it is, every time I want listen to Beethoven. In Helvetica. *sigh*
If you’re on twitter, tweet this thread.
30 Nov 2012 — 9:59am
Be careful what you wish for.
Just as the software decides which genre a particular piece of music belongs to, it may well one day decide on a style of type for that genre. You would no doubt get Beethoven in Garamond or Perpetua, rather than Walbaum.
(Segueway to discussion of “original instruments”…)
30 Nov 2012 — 10:45am
> I honestly aim to share these results with Apple.
That's fine, but it'll probably be added to some master list of iTunes complaints, which will then be ranked by number of complaints, and font complaints will be at the bottom of the list.
You might have better luck if you send a letter directly to Jony Ive, who's now in charge of interface design. Don't know if he'd ever actually read it, but he's the guy you'd want to influence.
30 Nov 2012 — 10:42am
*chuckle* Very good one Nick. Feeling a little blue today. Thanks for the good laugh.
30 Nov 2012 — 10:55am
Is Jony Ive in charge of UI for itunes, or UI for apple in general. Not familiar with the name.
30 Nov 2012 — 11:38am
Jonathan "Jony" Ives is the Vice President of Industrial Design. For many years he's been responsible for the design of their hardware (iMacs, iPods, iPads, etc), but software interfaces were handled in another department run by VP Scott Forstall.
After Forstall got the boot a few weeks ago, Ives was put in charge of interface design. So now he'll control both product design and interface design. The choice of Helvetica was undoubtedly made under Forstall's watch, but Ives will control future font decisions.
http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/jonathan-ive.html
30 Nov 2012 — 11:39am
Isn't Ive the guy who pushed through the defective external antenna? Talk about form over function... And you want him to worry about proper font choice?
But Chris, really, nobody at Apple gives a hoot about this survey. They made Chalkboard for chrissake.
Plus music is over-rated. And don't get me started on lyrics.
hhp
30 Nov 2012 — 11:42am
Hrant, we don't know if Ives was even aware of that technical problem prior to product release. In any event, he should be judged by his total body of work, which is amazing and award-winning.
30 Nov 2012 — 11:48am
@Nick: Specifically Piano Sonata No. 8. I used to be able to play this as a teenager. Stoping playing piano was probably the dumbest decision I ever made. That, and starting to smoke in junior-high because I thought it would make me “popular.” Whever the f*** that means…
And if I seem grumpy lately/in the near future it’s because I’m trying to quit. Again.
Back to voting!
30 Nov 2012 — 11:53am
“They made Chalkboard for chrissake.”
Touché.
But Jobs openly admitted on several occasions that the fact he got into typography very early in his life had a profound impact on his appreciation for good design.
30 Nov 2012 — 12:01pm
James, issues with external antennas were already well-documented, for example by Nokia and Blackberry. There is no way Apple in general and Ive in particular* were unaware of the potential for failure. The problem is that Apple in general is too concerned with Form, and Ive does fit that mold; you can't trust them with type (which is my main point). Another problem though is that Apple has a secrecy fetish, which results in a dearth of beta-testing (note also the maps fiasco).
* It's quite ironic BTW that Ive's "pretty" design ended up having to be concealed under so many gaudy third-party cases. Although intentionally making the screen easy to crack doesn't help...
Chris, Jobs did use typography as a springboard. But then he moved to platform diving and even stopped changing the chlorine in our pool.
hhp
30 Nov 2012 — 2:11pm
I think the problem was not that they knew about the problem and ignored it, but rather they weren't aware of the extent of the problem due to their testing methods.
Trusted Apple employees were given the prototype phone in a specially-designed case to make it look like the older model, so they could test it in public. However the presence of the case greatly reduced the problem. I have one of those models, and when you put it in a case the problem goes away.
Should they have caught the problem earlier? Yes. But I doubt if Ives was even aware that the problem existed.
> Apple in general is too concerned with Form...
> you can't trust them with type
I don't understand that comment.
30 Nov 2012 — 2:11pm
To me reading and "pretty" don't go together.
hhp
30 Nov 2012 — 2:12pm
"The problem is that Apple in general is too concerned with Form"
It may have been that they erred on the side of form with that particular bit of engineering, but overall, Apple is concerned with user experience. Which is a combination of both the form and the function.
30 Nov 2012 — 2:14pm
But to me only in the shallowest way - the way that leads to sales. And reading simply isn't very profitable.
hhp
30 Nov 2012 — 2:17pm
"But to me only in the shallowest way - the way that leads to sales."
The intent of focusing on user experience is to provide a product people like using. I'm not sure if UX gets much deeper than that. In the end, it's usually all about sales. For better or worse.
30 Nov 2012 — 2:34pm
Actually I believe user interface is the deepest thing we can design. But all we see now (with Apple leading) is stupid finger swipes. Because that's easy to sell. Challenging users to really leverage their abilities is not.
And I think some companies manage to move up from the only-sales-matters mindset. MS used to be all about money, but look at Bill Gates now. Look at the type MS has been giving us. Apple type? Like I said, Chalkboard. :-/
hhp
30 Nov 2012 — 2:56pm
"Challenging users to really leverage their abilities is not"
Not sure what you mean.
"MS used to be all about money, but look at Bill Gates now"
MS is still all about money.
I guess you're getting at bigger philosophical thoughts in terms of what the roles of corporations should be in society. I imagine I'd probably agree with your stance on most of it.
30 Nov 2012 — 3:23pm
2
30 Nov 2012 — 4:26pm
Does the expression "Who gives a rat's ass?" strike a familiar note?
Here comes de judge, here comes de judge...
30 Nov 2012 — 4:27pm
Does the expression "Who gives a rat's ass?" strike a familiar note?
Here come de judge, here come de judge...
30 Nov 2012 — 4:47pm
Bill Gates retired from daily involvement several years ago and is now heavily involved in charity work. Good for him, but that's his personal actions, not the company's.
Microsoft as a company is still very money-oriented; in fact a frequent criticism of CEO Steve Balmer is that he's been too focused on maintaining their cash cows of Windows and the Office Suite while failing to keep up with the innovations of their competitors. And its not just critics of the company that have said that; some of their strongest supporters have also complained about that.
30 Nov 2012 — 6:30pm
1
Of course, the problem isn't that it's the iTunes font. The problem is that it is also the iOS main system font. Insanity.
30 Nov 2012 — 7:32pm
Which fonts would be better choices?
1 Dec 2012 — 12:38pm
I’d pick Chicago if I could. Wheres my 8-track player?
2 Dec 2012 — 11:12am
James: My objection is primarily to the very closed apertures in Helvetica. Most any humanist sans serif would do better. They were already using Myriad as a corporate typeface, it would have been just fine. Your own Clearview would have been great.
2 Dec 2012 — 11:47am
> James...Your own Clearview would have been great
Actually I'm not James Montalbano. I'm a different JamesM.
2 Dec 2012 — 12:54pm
That's funny. I've been assuming you were him for a little while now! I guess I should have clicked on your user name. My bad.
2 Dec 2012 — 1:22pm
No problem; I've made similar mistakes here when names are similar.
2 Dec 2012 — 3:44pm
1 for Helvetica at small sizes, and 1.5 for Lucida Grande. To me the latter seems unjustifiably smug in its humane-late-modernism, because of the coarseness of, for instance, the way the bowls get away from stems on bpdq. (That's not to accuse the designers of smugness; I'm sure they're not. And my misperception of Lucida Grande is probably rare, but it is fairly intense.)
2 Dec 2012 — 6:35pm
Which fonts would be better choices?
A font formed from twigs or perhaps that looks like it's carved from panther pelt wall hangings would be more fitting. ;-)
2 Dec 2012 — 6:49pm
Someone also started a thread on the Apple Support Communities discussion board about changing the font in iTunes 11.0:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4554797?start=0&tstart=0
2 Dec 2012 — 9:13pm
Superbly put.
hhp
3 Dec 2012 — 1:27am
With the help of the discussion thread linked by Chris, I changed my iTunes fonts to the Segoe UI family :)
https://twitter.com/jenskutilek/status/275236961424388096/photo/1
3 Dec 2012 — 3:07am
What's iTunes?
3 Dec 2012 — 5:23am
So it worked? Sweet! Chicago, here I come!
3 Dec 2012 — 8:00am
3. Neutral.
iTunes isn't immersive reading. Helvetica is entirely adequate for the job.
3 Dec 2012 — 8:37am
@apankrat – It's Apple's music business and related software.
3 Dec 2012 — 9:12am
The "iTunes" name originally fit the product better when it was just a jukebox music application. But over the years it's grown into a general-purpose media control app, used to shop for and organize all kinds of media (movies, books, apps, tv shows, etc). Also used to control syncing of iPhones or iPads to your computer.
3 Dec 2012 — 9:20am
Yes, "iAmYourMaster" would be better.
hhp
3 Dec 2012 — 11:17am
As they used to say: Every app grows until it can read mail.
3 Dec 2012 — 11:46am
I actually laughed out loud after reading this. Nice one sir!
Typogruffer
3 Dec 2012 — 2:13pm
Thomas,
James Montalbano here.
Apple did contact me about licensing ClearviewHwy, but we were unable to come to terms. I think they may have wanted to use it in the Map application now that I see what the UI looks like. But they were very vague about where and how they wanted to use it.