Smartphone OS Fonts

Smartphones get all the buzz in the tech community nowadays. There are all kinds of smartphones on the market such as Symbian OS, iPhone OS, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile OS, Palm WebOS and Android OS… Besides the hardware specs differences, there are many mobile Operating system choices. Wither is the ease of use, beautiful User Interface (UI), or third party add-ons / apps, the OS is one of the most important deciding point.

Have you paid attention to the typography in Smartphone User Interface?
Have you ever wondered what fonts are used in popular Smartphone Operating Systems?
Let’s find out in this article.

Ok Let’s take a look the following Smartphone OS:

• Symbian OS
• BlackBerry OS
• iPhone OS
• Windows Mobile OS
• Android OS
• Palm WebOS

Symbian OS

Screensot of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic idle screen.
[image via: Wikipedia]

Symbian is Nokia’s smartphone OS. It is currently amongst the leading smartphone platforms in the world. Nokia uses it own Font for its corporate logotype and products. Although the UI is a little dated IMO.

Font family: Nokia Sans
by Agfa Monotype
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BlackBerry OS

Screensot of BlackBerry Bold 9000.
[image via: liewcf on Flickr]

RIM’s BlackBerry is the world’s second most popular smartphone platform, capturing 21% of worldwide smartphone sales in Q2, 2009. The UI looks very clean. BlackBerry uses its own font too. I’m not very sure about the font family. Can anyone confirm?

Font family: BBMillbank
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iPhone OS

Screensot of iPhone OS 3.0 on iPhone 3GS.
[image via: Wikipedia]

Apple’s iPhone is one of the most advanced and fest growing smartphone out there. According to Wikipedia, The company sold about 21.4 million iPhones to date. The Multi-touch support made it very easy to use interface. Also, the iPhone OS uses one of the most popular font.

Font family: Helvetica
by Haas Typefoundry
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Windows Mobile OS

Screensot of Windows Mobile 6.5 Today Screen.
[image via: Wikipedia]

Windows Mobile is Microsoft’s mobile OS. Originally appearing as the Pocket PC 2000, Windows Mobile has been updated multiple times, with the current version being Windows Mobile 6.5. There are so many version… just like Win 7′s.. There isn’t one consistent font family across the OS versions.

Font family:
Windows Mobile 6 Standard:
Microsoft Segoe
Microsoft Nina (9-point) for East Asian
Windows Mobile 6 Professional or Windows Mobile 6 Classic:
Microsoft Tahoma (default variable-width font).
Courier (default fixed-width font).
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Android OS

The Android Emulator default home screen.
[image via: Wikipedia]
Android is an Open Source Mobile OS developed by Google. Although the OS is very New, it has great potentials. Since it’s open source, Hardware manufactures can develop their own version of the UI such as: the HTC Sense, and MOTOBLUR… My favorite is the beautiful HTC Sense UI which can be found on HTC Hero. And don’t forget the new Android 2.0. It got its own font.

The Designer, Matteson describes as “upright with open forms, but not so neutral as a design like, say, Helvetica.”

Font family: Droid Sans
by Ascender
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Palm WebOS

Picture of a Palm Pre.
[image via: Wikipedia]

WebOS is Palm’s new generation of mobile OS. Palm is the first device loaded with webOS. Followed by the Palm Pixi which will be launched with webOS as well. The design of its UI is very clean. And it comes with a very nicely designed font. Very easy to read.

Font family: Prelude
by Font Bureau Type Foundry
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So, there you go. If you want to add anything or make corrections, please feel free to drop a comment.