What font does Apple use? Today it is San Francisco, the family Apple designed for its own devices and introduced in 2015. It comes in several versions (SF Pro, SF Compact, SF Mono), paired with a serif companion called New York. Before that, Apple used Myriad for marketing from about 2002 and Apple Garamond from the Macintosh launch in 1984.
Apple has changed its main typeface three times in forty years, and each change tells you something about where the company was heading. Below is the full picture, a table of what is used where, and some free lookalikes if you want that clean Apple feel in your own projects.
San Francisco: the current system font
San Francisco first appeared with the Apple Watch in 2014 and then became the system font for iOS, macOS and tvOS in 2015, replacing Helvetica Neue. It is a neo-grotesque sans-serif tuned for screens. The family has a few members:
- SF Pro is the standard version for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV. Its optical sizes adjust the spacing and shapes for small text versus large headings.
- SF Compact is narrower, designed for tight spaces such as the Apple Watch.
- SF Mono is a monospaced version used in Xcode and Terminal.
- SF Arabic, SF Hebrew and others extend the same design to other writing systems.
Apple makes San Francisco available to developers and designers, but the license is narrow. As widely reported, it is meant for mockups and apps on Apple platforms, not for general use elsewhere. Read the terms on Apple’s developer fonts page before using it.
New York: the serif partner
In 2019 Apple introduced a new serif called New York, designed to sit alongside San Francisco. Do not confuse it with the original New York bitmap font of the 1980s, which was part of the early Macintosh system fonts. The modern one is a refined serif with its own optical sizes, aimed at long reading on screens, and it appears in places like Apple’s reading experiences.
What font does Apple use for its logo?
Trick question: the Apple logo itself is an icon, not a font character. (The apple symbol you can type on a Mac is a private-use character that only shows on Apple devices.) The word “Apple” in corporate material has been set in whichever house typeface was current.
Where each typeface is used
| Where it is used | Typeface |
|---|---|
| iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV interface | SF Pro |
| Apple Watch interface | SF Compact |
| Code editors and Terminal | SF Mono |
| Long-form reading and editorial layouts | New York |
| Apple marketing and product pages | SF Pro (and related SF styles) in recent years |
| Marketing, roughly 2002 to 2015 | Myriad (customized) |
| Marketing and packaging, 1984 to about 2002 | Apple Garamond |
| System interface before 2015 | Helvetica Neue (iOS and later OS X), Lucida Grande (older Mac OS X) |
A short history
Apple Garamond (1984 to about 2002)
When the Macintosh launched in 1984, Apple adopted a corporate face called Apple Garamond. It was a narrowed version of ITC Garamond, which Tony Stan drew in 1977, squeezed to roughly 80 percent width. It gave the company a warm, literate look for ads and manuals.
Myriad (about 2002 to 2015)
Around 2002 (a few sources say 2003) Apple moved to a customized version of Myriad, the humanist sans-serif by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly for Adobe. Think of the original iPod and iPhone-era advertising: friendly, open, easy to read at a distance.
San Francisco (2015 to now)
With the Watch and a unified design across devices, Apple needed its own typeface, one it could adjust and extend without licensing headaches. San Francisco was the result, and in 2019 the naming was simplified into SF Pro.
Free lookalikes for Apple’s fonts
You cannot freely install San Francisco for general use, but similar neo-grotesque designs are easy to find:
- For an SF Pro feel, look through modern fonts. Clean, neutral sans-serifs are the right family.
- For SF Mono, try monospaced fonts.
- For New York or Apple Garamond style serifs, see serif fonts, where you will find Garamond-inspired and transitional designs.
- For headline impact, headline fonts help.
The free fonts section is the place to start, and famous fonts collects well-known names. Check each license before commercial use. Related reading: how to change the font on iPhone and what font Google uses.
Why Apple built its own typeface
A company that sells hardware, software and services across a watch, a phone and a desktop has a typography problem: one font has to be crisp at tiny sizes and still look elegant on a giant display. Apple’s solution with San Francisco was to build optical sizes into the family, so letter spacing and shapes adjust automatically as text gets larger or smaller. This is why a heading in an Apple app looks tighter and more refined than body text, even though both come from the same design.
Owning the font also gives Apple freedom to add weights, languages and features without negotiating a license for each one. The same logic explains why Google, Twitter and Discord all moved to custom typefaces in recent years. If you are curious how they compare, read about the font Discord uses.
Using Apple style type in your own work
The Apple look is mostly restraint: a neutral sans-serif, big headlines, light weights for large text, lots of white space, and very few decorative touches. You can get most of the effect with any clean grotesque, as long as you keep line lengths short and avoid heavy shadows or outlines. Pair it with a classic serif if you want the New York feel for long-form text.
Frequently asked questions
What font does the iPhone use?
Modern iPhones use San Francisco, specifically SF Pro. Before iOS 9 (2015) the iPhone used Helvetica Neue.
Is San Francisco free to download?
Apple lets developers and designers download it, but the license restricts use mainly to apps and mockups for Apple platforms. It is not a general-purpose free font.
What font was the original Apple logo text?
Apple’s early wordmarks varied. The longest-running corporate typeface after the Macintosh launch was Apple Garamond, used in advertising and packaging until around the early 2000s.
What is the difference between SF Pro and New York?
SF Pro is a sans-serif for interfaces. New York is a serif designed to pair with it, mainly for reading.
