Anybody else disappointed by orientation capability?

**hyoomen** · 09-23-2008, 11:01 AM

Is it just me, or does it seem like the orientation of the phone screen changes only when you open the keyboard (or, presumably, when an app chooses to have it in landscape vs. portrait)?

It still has accelerometers and such, so I wonder how quickly somebody can devise a way for it to auto switch to landscape upon rotation of phone.

**MrGibbage** · 09-23-2008, 11:47 AM

It looked to me that the screen orientation changed when the handset was rotated.

**hyoomen** · 09-23-2008, 11:59 AM

In the live vid stream today it appeared that it only turned once the keypad was opened. Hopefully this isn't true, but I'm sure we'll have verification by somebody's hands-on vid soon.

**ggreeenwood33** · 09-23-2008, 12:00 PM

i don't think it does. but it might just be a setting that he had truned off. how could it not. it has a cumpas and acceleration censors. if they wan't it to compete. it will.

**DesignDawg** · 09-23-2008, 07:01 PM

It's all in the coding of the app. There's a video on Engadget where the demo person was showing a video player app that DID use the accelerometer to change orientation. He didn't think it did at first, but he said "let's see..." and turned it, and BAM! it changed. He was explaining that it's all in the SDK, and it's up to the developers to code that in there or not. So, I think we have no worries. We've just seen a few instances that were written the boring way.

**mZimm** · 09-23-2008, 07:02 PM

Personally, I would want it to change to landscape EVERY time the keyboard is opened, but ALSO when it is rotated. It would be a little more complicated than doing it just by rotation, but it would seem ideal to me.

**divestoclimb** · 09-23-2008, 07:04 PM

Auto-rotating like the iPhone is not always a good thing. I've used a friend's iPhone and it can sometimes change orientation on you if you're holding the phone too flat or have it on a table--it's quite jarring when it happens.

**MrGibbage** · 09-29-2008, 08:16 AM

I just found this in the users manual (page 64):

Screen orientation
When your keyboard is open, Web pages will always display using landscape orientation. However,
when your keyboard is closed, you can change orientation by pressing MENU and selecting Flip
orientation. The orientation will “stick” until you explicitly change it.

I think this is the *PERFECT* solution.

**Jorsher** · 09-29-2008, 08:53 AM

Yeah, the accelerometer is nice but I can see where it would be annoying at times. I'd prefer to decide on my own. It'd be nice if there was a gesture or long-press option to do it

**bizarro_stormy** · 09-29-2008, 09:06 AM

i'm kind of glad its on an app by app basis, but that really depends on the sensitivity of the sensor, I hate my sisters canon sd750 that seems to have a hair trigger when it comes to rotating... But at the same time i think that they'll judge feedback and could easily add it as an option for apps that dont initially have it (through a firmware update or additional download)

Ideally i'd like to be able to control it within each app.