1: Once you are apparently incorporating four difference fonts as influences, aren't we in the realm of originality?
it's not the case that Roboto is a ripoff of an existing face, or even four existing faces (for the special case of "an existing face" == Helvetica, I posted about this at length here at my blog, complete with ranting and bad photoshops: http://http204.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/all-sans-serifs-are-...). it is the case that it's a product of its times and took inspiration from faces which already existed -- because if you create a font from scratch, intentionally trying to do only things which have never been done before, you're likely to end up with something completely unreadable.
that said, to me, it's super unrefined, chunky, and challenging to read -- it's outright broken at small sizes (and, thus, on low-DPI displays) where letters blob out around the edges due to poor hinting.
I'd much rather they just bring back Droid Sans. :(
He never said he thought it was decent looking.
The short version is: Gruber is a good read if you want to know what Apple is thinking.
That said, I think he's smart and knows exactly what he's doing. His audience is probably about 95% Apple product owners and he does a great job at suppressing any cognitive dissonance they may have regarding their Apple purchases - which keeps them coming back.
Reading his column is just another ritual for faithful followers of the Church of Apple.
http://androidspin.com/2011/10/19/miui-theme-itching-for-the...
Does Gruber have an urge to pick on everything Android does to make himself feel better about iOS? I think Android 4.0 brought a lot more improvements than iOS 5 did, but I guess he just has to find something to pick on.
