The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
New York vs Apple Garamond
Two serifs from Apple's own history, a generation apart. New York is the transitional serif Apple's design team released in 2019 as the companion to San Francisco, while Apple Garamond is the condensed ITC Garamond that Bitstream built for the first Macintosh in 1984 and that carried Apple's branding for nearly two decades.
New York is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Source Serif 4, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to New York → Apple Garamond is a commercial font, so it is shown here in EB Garamond, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Apple Garamond →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- New York ships in four optical sizes (Small through Extra Large) with six weights each and Latin, Greek and Cyrillic support, so one family covers small reading text and large display settings.
- Apple Garamond is ITC Garamond (Tony Stan, 1977) condensed to 80 percent of its width with adjusted stroke weights and custom hinting, giving it the narrow, tall-x-height look of Apple's 1980s and 1990s ads and product labels.
- New York is drawn to pair with San Francisco in Apple software, where Apple Garamond was a print-first corporate face used for logotype lockups, manuals and slogans like Think different.
- Neither is openly licensable: Apple offers New York free but only for software and mock-ups on Apple platforms, and Apple Garamond was never released at all, so the closest buyable option is the paid ITC Garamond Narrow, which adds licensing cost without the custom hinting.
- Apple retired Apple Garamond in favour of Myriad from 2002, while New York is current and still gaining uses, including Apple Music Classical and the iOS 26 lock screen.
New York
Reach for New York when you are designing an iOS or macOS app and want a modern serif with optical sizes that sits naturally next to San Francisco.
Apple Garamond
Reach for Apple Garamond, or ITC Garamond Narrow as its licensed stand-in, when you want a deliberately retro 1980s to 1990s Apple feel in print or brand work and can accept the cost.