On 12 Oct 2005, at 06:03, YAMAMOTO Mitsuharu wrote:

> I don't find much difference.  Of course, there are some differences
> in integral/fractional metrics, without/with typographical features
> such as kerning.  Is the difference more than those?

No, not in terms of letter spacing. I've fallen victim to an optical  
illusion.
It's the line-spacing that makes text appear more loose in other  
apps. Take a look at these screenshots. The enlarged image shows  
Emacs on the left, and TextEdit on the right.

Also, note that the first line is glued to the tool-bar, which  
doesn't look good at all.

(This is with a version from 10-10, apologies I haven't picked up any  
changes that affect this issue.)