It cracks me up when Microsoft posts these infinitesimally niche design projects/articles, where they pretend to care about good design, and then utterly fail to deliver it systematically across the organization, let alone even fractionally.
Remember when Google paid hundreds of freelancers a lot of money to come up with Material, and then how even that fizzled out?
In what way does it look bad? Historically, digital-focus fonts have been drawn specifically to handle very lo res displays, or very small print applications (optical embellishment, ink traps, etc)… but given that type designers are notoriously detail oriented and that font files are collections of vectors, I can’t see a reason why the design would lead to these effects. Ironically (since this is a Microsoft post) Windows often mangles type display, so can browser settings and CSS defaults/resets.
It’s also possible this commenter is seeing a fallback default font if Atpos is not available / didn’t download correctly on their system configuration
It may as well be down to a matter of taste, but I found it quite harder to read.
I tried to find what exactly i dislike about it, and the impression I get is that the weight and the spacing (kerning?) is inconsistent on the line. It reminds me a bit of linux desktop before the availability of decent free fonts.
It seems that neo-grotesques have fully supplanted the humanist typefaces in modern designs, with Aptos joining Inter and San Francisco. I wonder if Microsoft will replace Segoe at some point.
Office will download the full suite of variants on request.
For other download options (including licensing/redistribution for use outside of Office/Microsoft 365), it looks like Microsoft's usual deal with MonoType Foundry applies to Aptos as well and that you can make purchases at Fonts.com.
I believe that the question was linked to the previous one; out of the five sans-serif designs commissioned by Microsoft, are the serif and monospace versions available for the other four.
I was also interested, but I believe that if these were commissioned, they have not been made public.
With regards to OP's other question: 'Is it possible to easily download the full suite of Aptos variants?', I believe the answer is 'no', unless you're prepared to go clicking random 'download' links on sites of dubious legitimacy.
There's some discussion here on how you can access the fonts when they are downloaded by Office, with an appropriate note that the legality of this may depend on your jurisdiction, but it is fairly certainly a breach of the Font License: https://www.reddit.com/r/GoodNotes/comments/15zpsh2/anyone_k...
I read the whole article before asking and just re-read it again. I don't see answers to either of my questions. I'm guessing from other clues in the article the answer to my second question is "no".
Remember when Google paid hundreds of freelancers a lot of money to come up with Material, and then how even that fizzled out?