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blurry font on yosemite

so i've upgraded to yosemite.

overall i like it, simplified and more like iOS

however the first thing that hit me is how blurry all the text is everywhere!

it's pretty awful, i'm sure it wasn't that bad with mavericks

the menu bar at the top of the screen is worse of all, i really don't understand what is going on here.it's bad and i hope it will be addressed in an update

User uploaded file

i think you can see from this screen shot how the web text is fairly clear whilst the menu bar is blurry

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 7:37 AM

Reply
206 replies

Jun 11, 2015 8:33 AM in response to Gabriolndn

I am just making the switch from Windows to a Macbook Pro, and with less than a week under my belt I am seriously considering taking this back and buying a Lenovo. The headaches from using this thing are incredible. I have used PCs my entire life, but have never gotten to the end of the day ready to just die in pain. For a while I thought it was the font being too small, so I made it larger, but the headaches still come back. I am going to head down to the Apple store today and try and get help.

Jun 11, 2015 10:54 AM in response to bmstevens

Please keep us posted here as to what they say and do at the Apple Store!


The problem is that Apple's "No questions asked." return policy is a two-edged sword. If you accept it, then you get your money back, but no record is made of your Mac's problems. But if you instead opt for the Genius Bar to try to resolve the problems, then your deadline for returning the Mac runs out.


Let us know how you make out and what you decide.


Nate

Jun 11, 2015 2:16 PM in response to MacsSince1984

Well, I just got back from the Chicago Apple Store on Michigan street, and nobody had any idea of the problem. I took them to this forum thread, and they said to just try the things that have already been posted, such as turning off LCD Font Smoothing. At this point, I am going to leave font smoothing off for a while and see if things improve.


To be honest, I am somewhat disappointed that I spend this much on a machine, on an attempt to switch from a Windows PC over, and Apple can't comment on the issues. There are numerous threads of these issues, and I can't seem to find any official response. To complicate things, I couldn't talk to anyone at the genius bar until tomorrow because of their appointment system. I wish they had a priority genius bar for new owners or something for say the first two weeks of ownership.

Jun 11, 2015 4:55 PM in response to bmstevens

bmstevens wrote:


Well, I just got back from the Chicago Apple Store on Michigan street, and nobody had any idea of the problem. I took them to this forum thread, and they said to just try the things that have already been posted, such as turning off LCD Font Smoothing. At this point, I am going to leave font smoothing off for a while and see if things improve.



This bug has been reported via Feedback by me and at least 1000 others and that @ the day of Yosemite's launch. This is a very well known bug ALSO by Apple Engineers. Weird that the Store and all the geniuses weren't aware of this issue....


Yosemite is a great OS with a LOT of quirks. But also a lot of new and great features (IMO at Least). El Capitan in located within the Yosemite. So it is what Mountain Lion was to Lion. A big and great bug fix for Lion. At least I hope that choosing the name El Capitan is synonymous for saying "Hey Guys, we've heard you... 10.10 was premature and 10.11 is going to fix all that...."


If it aint, I am moving from 20 years of Mac to sad sad but more reliable world of Windoze !

Jun 27, 2015 9:11 AM in response to Richard Adkins

OS X El Capitan will be released around September and it has the San Francisco font. I'm not sure if Apple will be fixing the font aliasing problem because they haven't acknowledged it whatsoever. There are bug reports on Open Radar. I've sent more than 20 bug/feedback reports to Apple since installing Yosemite. It's fallen on deaf ears.


Btw, I spoke with a lot of people (whenever I get a chance) that have Macs (retina and non-retina) and all them have noticed that the Helvetica Neue in Yosemite is blurry and hard to read. They just don't go on support forums to air it.


Every single reputable tech website has offered some sort of fix for the blurry font in Yosemite, but of course, none of these work because it's a Yosemite bug. Apple knows about it. The $750 billion market cap corporation and they're marketing gurus don't live in a cave. Money isn't scarce for software engineers to fix it. It's an embarrassment.

Jun 28, 2015 5:23 AM in response to crystalship

Below is Ars Technica's recent article about the blurry font problem in Yosemite and the new San Francisco font tailored for OS X in El Capitan. I hope the final version of the San Francisco system font is bolder (seems lighter to me as per the screenshots I've seen so far), and let's not forget the font smoothing bug fixed since the system font is being worked on anyway by Apple software engineers.


http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/preview-os-x-el-capitans-first-beta-is-a-pr omising-heap-of-refinements/2/

Jun 28, 2015 1:02 PM in response to crystalship

Unfortunately, Ars Technica lost some of their lustre in my eyes when they praised Yosemite to the skies in their extremely lengthy and detailed positive review of it - 25 pages! - by John Siracusa - Oct 16, 2014

OS X 10.10 Yosemite: The Ars Technica Review
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/25/


There was not one word, to the best of my recollection, about the blurry font problem, despite complaints from real users everywhere, which soon thereafter lit up the internet after they followed Siracusa's unqualified praise and upgraded their Macs to Yosemite.


Nate

blurry font on yosemite

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