After much speculation about Apple’s custom typeface to be used on their first Smartwatch—we last wrote about it here—the company has released its first in-house designed system font in almost 20 years, named ‘San Francisco’.
It came together with the new bundle of WatchKit developer tools, that would help make third-party Apple Watch apps—the Apple Watch system font came in a folder containing 23 different variation of the typeface.
According to Fast Co. Design, the San Francisco typeface is seemingly inspired by Helvetic and FF Din—it is designed specifically for smaller display, and look good on Retina displays, because of its spacious kerning between each letter.
As to why it is being named San Francisco, Steve Jobs told Susan Kare and the other Apple typeface designers in the earlier days of Mac, to name the system fonts after major cities in the world—the company already has Chicago, New York, Geneva and Cairo already in its collection.
Download the typeface here to play around with it.
San Franciso Display - Regular
[via Fast Co. Design]