
IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape - cwilson
I know I can't be the only person who uses their iPhone in bed, specifically to read news, books, and various social networks; because of this I end up using applications that allow me to disable landscape mode because if you have tried this you know how frustrating it is to turn over to your side and suddenly the screen flips and it's impossible to read.<p>Certain wonderful apps like Stanza (e-reader), Byline (RSS Reader / Google Reader Sync), and Tweetie provide this option. I love them for it.<p>Some apps do not provide this functionality however (Facebook, NetNewsWire, and even Safari) and I hate them for it. I absolutely can't stand using an application which frustrates me in bed. Maybe I'm crazy.<p>or<p>Maybe developers should offer this simple switch in their options to turn this off. It may just be that I'm the only person yelling about this but I know other users get frustrated by this as well, it's simply overlooked at times.<p>So, join me in asking developers to kindly provide this option for us. I'm looking at Apple as well, Safari is a huge pain in the ass while laying in bed.
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jakecarpenter
So your frustration in bed is Apple's problem? ;)

On a serious note, I agree 100%. There are lots of time where disabling
rotation would be useful: in bed, in a small plane, or anything else super
jostling.

Maybe the ability to lock the perspective, but also switch in manually.

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DougBTX
Safari fix: You'll find that Safari Mobile will never rotate so that it is
fully upside down. So, tilt your mobile to the desired landscape mode, then
tilt the phone upside down (so that the home button is up and the ear piece is
down).

Tada: landscape bed reading mode!

(I'm still on OS2, but I expect this to be the same in 3.)

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philfreo
Good tip... now if only there was a trick for portrait mode.

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petercooper
Yep, this has driven me bonkers since day one. In fact, if I could easily tear
out the accelerometer(s) totally I'd be the first to do it (I find games that
use them next to unplayable).

I listen to podcasts every night going to sleep and if I want to find a
different podcast to listen to, it dives into Coverflow (which I can't imagine
anyone ever finding productive, but weirder things have happened!)

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davidroe
if you are willing to jail-break, RotationInhibitor does the trick.

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ryanpetrich
you're welcome.

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gojomo
For apps whose interface can spare the space, a simple 'orientation lock'
toggle button could do the trick. Is there a existing/obvious default icon to
use for such a button?

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Zev
The problem is, it can be very hard to fit in a button that is used once and
rarely again in applications that don't have settings. Or, for that matter, it
can sometimes be hard to fit in a button for a commonly used/requested
feature.

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cwilson
I'm not sure I've ever seen an app that doesn't have a settings pane either in
the global settings area or within the app.

I agree that adding in a landscape toggle is not going to be an option for
everyone, there isn't much real-estate to play with on the iPhone.

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tlrobinson
Why should every developer have to implement this. Apple should make it a
system-wide setting.

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cwilson
Because that system wide setting would break a ton of apps (think about games
that only use landscape for example). I mean, I'd personally be fine with
this, but I don't think it's as easy as that.

~~~
ryanpetrich
Rotation is a system-provided feature. Apps that require the accelerometer
access it directly; apps that require landscape would still be able to force
that orientation (and would work as they do today)

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jlintz
I completely agree with you and it frustrates me to no end. But I'd be willing
to bet money Apple has probably seen the feedback and they decided this is
whats best for you. Sometimes the things you'd think would be the most obvious
in an apple product are the least likely to be implemented. For instance, I
have no way of turning off my monitor on my imac, I have to set the
screensaver idle time really really low. It took them 9 versions of itunes to
add the ability to "watch" a music folder, and they still implemented it the
way they wanted, by just giving you one folder to drop music into. IMHO I
think they are hurting themselves with this attitude, but then again, I doubt
they care what I think anyway...

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blackmac
CTRL-SHIFT-EJECT should do the trick on your iMac :)

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Poiesis
Adding yet another option is something that a good developer will do only
after careful consideration.

That said, let me say that I do like GoodReader's (an iPhone PDF reader)
orientation lock. And of course the fact that it doesn't flail on large PDFs
like other apps.

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cwilson
I agree with you but when building an application that has a primary use of
reading lots of information, specifically in casual situations, the
orientation seems like an obvious UX decision to tackle.

Facebook and the new NetNewsWire apps are two good examples.

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yesimahuman
I am totally with you. When I open my mail in bed and I turn on my side,
suddenly the whole screen flips over and I just hate it.

However, I really don't see a way to differentiate between bedtime landscape
and normal landscape. Honestly, the initial annoyance and having to reorient
my brain for the landscape change is less annoying than possibly having to go
into a setting and disable it before it happens. Once it switches I get used
to it I just don't like it at first.

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cwilson
There are two solutions that I see, possibly three:

1\. A simple option in the applications settings that allows you to turn it
off completely (obviously certain games would never have this option however).

2\. A toggle somewhere in the UI, I've seen a few apps do this actually. It's
a temporary switch and can be done without digging through any settings.

3\. Global option in Apples settings. The problem here is that many apps are
built with landscape in mind so this would cause tons of issues.

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rflrob
I like option 3 the best. For the "apps that are built with landscape in
mind", do they only have one setting, or do they have both, but somehow work
"better" in landscape? I've seen at least one of the former, but that one
defaults to landscape no matter how it's oriented, so it doesn't seem like it
really asks the OS for what orientation to use.

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aberbotimue
Oh please - I thought it was just me.. I have to turn in such a way, I get
told off for shining the screen in her eys.. disable it, and I will have a
better life!

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djehuty
It's mail in bed that's the issue for me. I can't be the only one who wakes
up, reaches something like full consciousness, and then reaches for the iphone
to see if anything urgent or interesting has appeared in my mail.

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palish
Erm... You can get around this in Safari by orienting your phone so that the
Home button is towards your ceiling. The reason this works is because Safari
only has three rotations (normal, landscape 90deg left, and landscape 90deg
right). Since it never flips upside-down, just keep your phone oriented so
that the home button is towards the ceiling.

Edit: Oh snaps, apparently apps besides Safari will actually flip entirely
upside-down! Wow, that's annoying. Seems like a bug in their app, though.
Safari got it perfect.

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lo_fye
It shouldn't be app-specific. It should be core functionality. Perhaps a
gesture, like, if you put 2 fingers on the screen (one at the top, one at the
bottom) and rotate them to correctly orient the content, then the Phone should
take that as an order to change the orientation from portrait to landscape, or
vice-versa... Possibly also add a "lock orientation" icon just to the right of
the clock at the top centre of the display so you can lay down, gesture to
change orientation, and then lock it.

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mlamb1976
This is something that Apple could totally provide at a global level.
Subclasses of the UIViewController can override the
willRotateToInterfaceOrientation:duration: method to define how they want to
handle rotation events. Apple could modify the UIViewController's default
behavior to not send rotation messages if a global "don't rotate" setting is
set to true.

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Otto42
1\. Jailbreak. 2\. SBSettings. 3\. RotationInhibitor. 4\. There is no step
four.

Seriously, why more people don't just jailbreak their devices and make it work
the way they want it to work baffles me. Jailbreaking my 3GS (running 3.0
originally) took a total of 3 minutes using the purplera1n method. The redsn0w
takes a bit longer and has more downloading involved, but still...

~~~
jdg
9 out of 10 support requests for my app come from jailbroken users. About 1/3
are actual cracked copies; I can tell, because they register with our API
server and the app sends along little bits of goodies. I ignore those, other
than a "Buy a legitimate copy and I'll be more than happy to help you."

The other 2/3's are crashes from jailbroken devices. Directly caused by
SBSettings. In fact, having the users go in and turn everything off in
SBSettings usually fixes it.

So that's why jailbroken devices suck. It's not about "making it work the way
they want", it's about having a stable environment for your applications to
run in.

~~~
Otto42
Fair enough, but I'd point out that I've had a jailbroken phone for quite a
while, installed and played with thousands of apps, and never experienced one
"crash". What's the difference? Simple, I only installed tried and tested
apps, even from Cydia.

Jailbreaking the phone is simply _not_ inherently more unstable. It's like
anything else, if you install unstable stuff, you get unstable results.
SBSettings is perfectly stable and works well, as do most of the simpler
addons for it, RotationInhibitor being one of these. But quality of JB apps
varies, and there certainly are a lot of unstable ones out there.

So before you go blaming jailbreaking itself, I'd investigate to see what
specific apps are interfering with your app, and see what the issue is.
Because a jailbroken phone is certainly not inherently more unstable. It's the
unstable addons are the problem, but people are stupid and will install any
old thing, no matter how crap quality it might be.

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senthilnayagam
I totally agree with it, smart rotation can be dumb in many scenarios, there
manual controls work best

also the internet tethering enabling / disabling needs 5-6 clicks/swipes, it
can be made lot simpler than that

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senthilnayagam
I totally agree with it, smart rotation can be dumb in many scenarios, there
manual controls work best

also the internet tethering enabling / disabling needs 5-6 clicks/swipes, it
can be made lot simpler than that

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netspencer
I completely agree! Though, maybe orientation toggling could be disabled on a
system level. Double clicking the home button could bring up a dialog box
allowing you to turn it off easily.

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danw
Apples own iPhone apps never rotate "upside down" in portrait mode, so you can
use a landscape view on your side with no trouble. 3rd party apps should
follow this convention.

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rmdstudio
I agree we should be able to lock the screen to portrait mode!

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aerique
Jailbreak your IPhone and install Rotation Inhibitor. It's a vutton easily
reachable from any app.

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jpeterson
There's a joke in there somewhere...

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jjames
"IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones" - worst fortune ever.

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rpcutts
Shouldn't this feature be provided at the OS level rather than a per app
basis?

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st3fan
Haha this is so true. I use my iPhone as an alarm clock and sometimes also
read mail or news on it in bed. Landscape mode is so annoying. You finally get
comfy and then .. boom! .. landscape mode ..

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CCs
Amazon Kindle does it nicely… kind of popup-button.

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ngvrnd
This is an excellent point. It annoys me daily.

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ccheever
Yeah, I wish this were an OS-level toggle.

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eueueuii
ditto for Palm Pre!

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curio
YES!

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abalashov
Word!

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iag
I concur wholeheartedly

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gte910h
Apple says to do it that way.

Options are hell.

You shouldn't read in bed anyways, it is poor sleep hygiene

