Learn how to turn on bold text on your Apple TV to switch to a much heavier font that makes it easier to read things throughout the user interface.
Apple TV defaults to using a light typeface throughout the tvOS interface. If your vision isn’t what it used to be, light typeface makes the text hard to distinguish from background shading, even if your box is hooked up to a really big screen TV. To help with that, the Apple TV software offers a heavier font option, making the text easier to read.
Before we get to it, we should point out that this nifty little feature is supported on any Apple TV model from the fourth-generation model onward.
How to enable bold text on Apple TV
- Open the tvOS Settings app.
- Scroll down the list of options and select Accessibility.
- Select Display.
- Select Bold Text and change it from Off to On.
With the bold text option turned on, tvOS replaces the light San Francisco typeface with a much heavier variant across the interface, including places like the Settings app, your Apple TV Home Screen, and other places where text is displayed.
Note: If you are on an older model of Apple TV running an earlier build of tvOS, go to Settings > General > Accessibility. From here, highlight the Bold Text option, then press the Touch surface on your Siri Remote. A message pops up saying enabling the bold text option will require a restart. Click Continue if you’d like to enable this option.
If you don’t have 20/20 vision or simply find the light San Francisco font ineligible, especially against darker backgrounds, go bold for easy-to-read text.
Do you have difficulty discerning if a Home Screen icon is selected or not? If so, how about putting a nice glow effect around tvOS’s selection rectangle by enabling a high-contract cursor?
On the same note: