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Is it fair to criticize Apple's new typeface "San Francisco" for looking like Roboto?

3 Answers
Stephen Coles
Stephen Coles, Co-founder of Fonts In Use & Typographica.org. Author of “The Anatomy of Type”.
Updated 206w ago · Author has 961 answers and 4.2m answer views
San Francisco Compact has a lot more in common with typefaces like DIN and Akkurat than it does Roboto. Still, Roboto is a more recent design and Google is Apple’s main competition, so I can see why one would compare it to Roboto. But criticize is probably going too far.

We don’t know how long San Francisco has been in development, but it’s likely more than a year, and maybe before Roboto was even released. I highly doubt Roboto was a strong influence on its design.

What I believe is more likely: the design brief was to produce a new typeface in the spirit of Helvetica (Apple’s existing choice for iOS and OS X) but optimized for smaller sizes. This means making the shapes more compact and legible — while perhaps borrowing from the aesthetic of vintage timepieces with engraved/routed lettering akin to DIN. I can see how a legitimate type designer with these goals might start from scratch and end up in a very similar place to type like Akkurat and Roboto.

Updated June 19 to specify that this answer covers only SF Compact, the subfamily designed for the Apple Watch and released in November 2014. A slightly different (round sided) version of the typeface was released in June 2015 for iOS and OS X.
13.3k views · View 55 Upvoters · Answer requested by David Cole

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