a study of apple.com
03 · october 2026
Apple writes its design guidelines for apps. Its website follows most of them anyway.
the type
Body text is 17px, the size iOS uses. Like Apple's tracking table, the site pulls body text tighter and lets headlines out, by its own numbers, and above 40px it pulls them tight again.
apple’s table apple.com
apple’s table −0.026em
Hello, hello.
apple.com −0.022em
Hello, hello.
the 44
The top bar is 44px tall, like the bar at the top of an iPhone app, and so is every link in it. Five links are narrower than 44, none narrower than 28, Apple's smallest.
the glass
The bar is frosted, white at 80% and blurred, with the color under it pushed up a little. Apple's apps moved to Liquid Glass in 2025, the website kept the frost.
the gray
The fine print in the footer passes the 4.5 to 1 minimum. Apple asks apps for 7 to 1 on small text.
This is the fine print, 12px and black at 56%, where the footnotes, prices and terms go.
Shop and Learn
Store
Mac
iPad
iPhone
Account
Manage Your Apple Account
Apple Store Account
iCloud.com
Apple Store
Find a Store
Genius Bar
Today at Apple
- fine print
56%4.8:1- links
72%8.9:1- headings
88%15.4:1
the curve
Nearly half the timing curves in the site's CSS are this one. It's almost ease-in-out.
cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.6, 1)cubic-bezier(0.42, 0, 0.58, 1)the settings
Turn on reduce motion and the home page's video never loads. Switch your system to dark and every page stays light.
The website keeps most of the rules an app would, dark mode is the one it skips.
measured from apple.com's home, iphone and mac pages on 14/10/2026, against the guidelines as published that day. off apple devices the font is a stand-in.