Apple Intentionally Makes Safari’s Type Blurry.

Why is the type so blurry on Safari? Believe it or not, this is intentional.

Both Microsoft and Apple use a technology called sub-pixel rendering. This technology basically splits pixels into three parts (RGB), and allows for three times the resolution flexibility. Microsoft and Apple have two different philosophies when it comes to how to utilize this technology.

Joel Spolsky explains:

* Apple generally believes that the goal of the algorithm should be to preserve the design of the typeface as much as possible, even at the cost of a little bit of blurriness.
* Microsoft generally believes that the shape of each letter should be hammered into pixel boundaries to prevent blur and improve readability, even at the cost of not being true to the typeface.

So, Apple is willing to over-anti-alias the type in Safari in an attempt to make it look prettier. Although the type rendered in Firefox and IE isn’t quite as “pretty”, it is much sharper and more legible. It is doubtful that Windows users will be willing to switch to the fuzzy text found in Safari any time soon.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 10:49am and is filed under FireFox, General, Internet Explorer, Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.