On high-resolution devices these days, simply drawing the outline as is often produces smooth enough results. Due to improvements in display density, grid misalignment has become less noticeable. As a result, there are fewer situations where strong correction is required as it was in the past.

The alignment of baselines, etc. and stroke correction are, in other words, minor adjustments in the shape of a glyph. From the standpoint of respecting the outline, the concept of deliberately avoiding deformation also holds up. Whether or not to adopt hinting is also a choice between emphasizing display stability or outline fidelity.

In Apple products, such as macOS and iOS, etc., the rendering engine does not perform hinting. Apple made the decision to abandon hinting long before the introduction of Retina displays, with the release of “Mac OS X (10.0)” back in 2001. Since hinting corrections may slightly change the outline shape, this option avoids said deformation. On the other hand, Adobe applications also use their own rendering engine on macOS and incorporate hinting. I believe this decision was made to prioritize stability when displaying at small sizes.

When talking about the future, it’s certain that situations where hints become unnecessary will increase. However, I don’t know when hints will disappear completely.

(mm)