So the proposal is to prebuild subpixel-smoothed images of your text for the web?<p>Not everyone can read subpixel rendering correctly (CRTs, LCDs with weird subpixel orders, people with rotated screens.) You can't increase or decrease the font size in your browser, and you can't wrap it on a smaller screen. Plus, the text isn't selectable or searchable, which is a showstopper. That's why things like sIFR exist.<p>What is the point? I completely disagree that this is pretty cool. This sucks (compared to other solutions, including not doing it at all.) It is the ultimate triumph of form over function. It is like something someone would have suggested in 2001. If you want something cool, check out modern solutions to this problem like Cufon, which generates fonts that can be rendered as real text with Javascript.<p>That, or, you know, let the user decide how he wants to read your text instead of trying to control every last pixel on his screen.
I was going to point out that the demo image is misleading because the Mac's rendering would look better than Photoshop even without subpixel anti-aliasing (which is plain stupid for the web, minimal gain with possibility of looking much worse in certain circumstances) but I don't have to:<p><i>"Even when subpixel antialiasing is turned off (Appearance panel in System Preferences), the rendered text still looks better than that from Photoshop, Flash and JavaScript."</i> -- the author, in comments<p>This would allow transparent backgrounds too, which seems to be the number one request. I'm guessing it would be fairly easy to replicate this cross platform using the standard linux text rendering stack. Mac text rendering isn't really about better technology, they just make different decsions.<p>Decisions that those used to Windows text rendering hate. I on the other hand love it and set my Ubuntu boxes up the same way. I think this should be the default on Ubuntu but people get really attached to the text rendering they are used to.
The problem with OS X font rendering imho is that it produces heavier result than anything else.<p>I made comparison picture, and noticed that Adobe Reader renders text bit taller than others, but on the other hand it has imho best antialiasing. <a href="http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/5549/fontrendering.png" rel="nofollow">http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/5549/fontrendering.png</a><p>(Samples are from Windows/Wordpad, Adobe Acrobat(using pdf printed from Wordpad), Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop (sharp), in that order.)