Apple Mail Default font for authored email messages

By default, all Apple Mail composed emails are in HTML. That HTML though, has no actual text styles, Except for predefined signatures and when the composer changes the font type or size or any other attributes. The program doesn’t prevent you from changing the font for every single email but you have to do that individually. Every email I get from Apple has a variety of different fonts and sizes. Why isn’t every email sent by Apple the same font size and type? By the way, I don’t use Apple’s MacOS Mail at all and I will not unless they adopt standard features that all other mail clients use. Even in mail on iOS, if you copy and paste text from a website like Wikipedia, there is no way to not paste the font type and size. By default I always want to match the Message font. In iOS mail, which I do use, also has no text attributes by default. The way around this problem is to share, copy and paste instead of simply copy and paste. On my Mac I have changed the default use of Command “V” in Apple Mail and every other app that uses Standard Apple APIs, to paste without attributes. Unfortunately my mail client doesn’t use the Apple standard APIs for pasting and I have to use the menus to paste.

Actually you are right, I just tested this. Even if the format is selected as rich text, the default. Not a single bit of HTML is sent. If you select the text of your message and type "COMMAND +" and hit "send" the message is transformed to HTML instantly. If you set no text attributes the message source shows plain text. With every other mail client this is not the case. This behavior is unique and I am sure has been the same since version 1.0 of mail, someone must be attached to this behavior, because any default font sent no matter how basic would preclude HTML. There is a way to force certain domains to only be sent plain text with the client I use. Some domains may only serve unix shell based email clients, still, to this day.

When I first used email, on a TCP-IP network connected to the early internet, the "world wide web" hadn't been invented yet; HTML hadn't been invented yet. Usenet was the closest thing we had to the WWW. Emojis were invented originally mostly on CompuServe's CB Simulator :-), this was the first chat service. There were Never more than 200 people chatting nationwide at any one time when I started using it on my TRS-80 in 1980. However old school I might have been, through osmosis mostly, my attitude towards EMAIL, WWW, ETC. has been tailored by the desktop publishing world.

Actually the first VAX I used ran UNIX/32V not VMS. The second, and subsequent VAXes ran VMS. Actually my first Computer programming professor had worked for bell labs and knew Ken Thompson and the rest of the crew at Bell Labs that created UNIX. Unfortunately we learned pascal instead of “C”. Much later, I met the author of my VAX assembly text book on a cruise. He also happened to be an episcopal minister and was actually married at my church. Quite a few coincidences. I also met Ken Olson, DEC founder and Rear admiral Grace Hopper, author of the first compiler when I was still in high school. I was there when she was told she was being promoted from captain to rear admiral. (At the time called commodore.) I feel lucky to have met so many pioneers in the industry. I switched from CS to information management while still in school. My passions were helping organizations use technology efficiently and productively. An area that still has a long way to go. Connecting to end users was very important to me. I could sit forever watching happy people use the software I developed to do their jobs.

Everything you said is factual. It still doesn’t answer the question, “why does Apple not have a default font for composed messages, like every other mail client?” I suppose if they could they would make everybody’s handwriting identical. (Or better yet, look the same with no genitals, the way one noted comic describes Apple Store employees. LOL).

So your answer to my question of “why Apple does not allow a default font?”, is it wants Everyone to look like everyone else. No default font for any message sent only plain text. And this is Simply this way they encourage everybody to be identical.

Some Apple devotees I know are annoyed by any font that isn’t Arial or Helvetica. These are not people that worked for Apple, just people that have met Steve Jobs and worship him to some extent. This also speaks to the ironic nature of not being able to by default view a message in plain text. I guess they also want to identify the non-conformists by their fancy (like Comic Sans) fonts. 😂 As far as Apple employees, many might think that their outgoing font is the message font. Really, the only reason I want the Apple Mail Client to do this, is, I don’t want to use a buggy 3rd party app. Which I do.