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IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#22

Post by dirkstoop »

gojomo wrote: post #4

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?

Amazon's Kindle iPhone app has a very neat implementation of this. Wehenver the screen adjusts its rotation, a little round lock button fades in, sticks around for a while, and fades out again.

If you touch it, the screen is now locked in the current orientation. To see the button again, simply rotate your iPhone to another 90° angle range and it'll fade in again briefly.

Works really well, maybe not so great for the small plane scenario where orientation changes all the time making the continuous fading in/out a bit annoying, but great for statically holding your iPhone at an off angle.

Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#23

Post by dirkstoop »

DougBTX wrote: post #18

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.)

It is, thankfully

Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#24

Post by zefhous »

cwilson wrote: post #5
yesimahuman wrote: post #3

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 s…

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 ma…

I think it's somewhat doubtful that Apple would implement this, but I would like to be able to change it back with the "rotate" gesture that is used on newer Apple notebooks.

Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#25

Post by cwilson »

tlrobinson wrote: post #21

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

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.

Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#26

Post by graham-miln »

tlrobinson wrote: post #21

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

tlrobinson is right; give Apple feedback. Ask for a iPhone wide setting to lock the orientation:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Re: IPhone Developers: We use our iPhones in bed, allow us to disable landscape

#27

Post by 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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