[shetter]

Sorry somehow I thought that was obvious. Basically they cut the line very close to the letter, that way it doesn't break the line visually, which is what the other comments here on HN seem to criticize. It's a very simple and subtle thing but that's what makes the difference. My point was that sometimes the incremental steps between the default design and Apple's design are worst than if you just kept to the default design. You have to make a big step before perceiving benefits. Sorry for the pigeonholding though, that was more of a general rant.

[adamschwartz]

See my comment above [1]. I think you’ll find that the iOS 8 and SmartUnderline implementations are closer than you think.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8588492

[micampe]

You keep repeating that comment but no, they are not. The idea is clever and the result is pretty good, but what the parent is saying – that in your implementation the line looks more broken up because it's more separated from the glyphs – is true.

You may be able to fix that by tweaking the shadows but as it is currently implemented it works pretty well for larger display text but not so much for smaller body text.