Apple released a free font 34 years ago on the original Mac

In 1984, the first Macintosh came with a series of fonts designed by Susan Kare. These fonts are all named after famous US cities. The most prominent of these is Chicago font - the default font on Macintosh for many years and New York fonts.

34 years have passed, seeming that these fonts have fallen into oblivion, recently, at the WWDC event, Apple rebuilt and released New York fonts again.

Apple released a free font 34 years ago on the original Mac Picture 1

In fact, last year this font was released in the new iBooks application, but until now Apple has allowed users to download for the first time ever. However, Apple's terms of use specify that this font is only used in mockup images and Apple related applications.

Apple released a free font 34 years ago on the original Mac Picture 2

Currently, Mac and iOS by default use sans serif fonts called San Francisco, with clear lines and no extra details. One highlight of these fonts is that they can be enlarged or reduced without losing readability.

Besides these advantages, sans serif fonts also have disadvantages such as making it difficult to create a visual hierarchy and sometimes look silly. Therefore, graphic designers often mix serif and sans serif fonts when used.

The new iOS 13 update released by Apple allows users to change the default fonts of both operating systems and applications. And this is probably why Apple introduced a sans serif standard and reborn New York fonts to make it easier for users to do that.