After frequently running into what this non-designer guy describes as that sorta round-y, bubble gum, mac-y font, I started to wonder if there was a pattern and some explanation.
Firebugging revealed what every mac user could have told me, that it was Lucida Grande. Old web posts said this was dangerous as Lucida didn’t come standard on the PC, and looked really bad if you didn’t have it. It looked good to me, so I must have something installed that brought it along. Sure enough it’s in my Fonts folder, from Office perhaps?
Some interesting basic reading for those who haven’t dealt with this before talked about Lucida being in a “now common font stack” (though it’s not listed in the MS “core fonts for the web” list) so I guess it’s ok.
Apparently anyone who wants to give their site that Mac panache can now safely do it.
I believe that what is mostly available on Windows-based PC’s is Lucida Sans, which is close to Lucida Grande, but not exactly the same. In general, there will be some slight variations between fonts available on Macs and those available on PC’s. In this case, it is noticeable to the keener eye.