Amazon’s rotate lock
I recently started using Amazon.com’s Kindle app for the iPhone. I own a 1st-generation Kindle and I figured I’d give the iPhone app a try to see how it differs on the phone. Overall, I like it, and navigating through books seems to be 1000x faster on the iPhone app. But the small size and short battery life leave a lot to be desired compared to an actual Kindle (bring on the iTablet, Apple!).
But there’s one thing that stood out to me in the app when I stumbled upon it. It’s a brilliant fix to an issue that’s been plaguing the iPhone since day 1, and made even worse with the 3.0 update… If you’re reading on your iPhone while lying down, it often inadvertently flips from portrait to landscape orientation. Amazon’s fix is to add a “rotate lock” control that appears in the bottom-right corner when the orientation changes.
To say the least, this ingenious little UI element has taken away a lot of frustration for me. Nice job, Amazon!
I wish Apple would adopt this mechanism for their own apps, especially Safari and Mail.
Warbrain
8:17pm, August 8
OH-EM-GEE…
I wish Apple could be that ingenious. I hate landscape mode.
CompC
9:13pm, August 8
There has been a Rotation Lock/Unlock button in Lexcycle’s Stanza for a while now.
Bodog
9:25pm, August 8
There is a sort of workaround for this in Apple’s native apps such as Mobile Safari and Mail:
Rotate the screen 90 degrees CCW into landscape mode, then again another 90 degrees CCW. The screen won’t rotate upside-down into portrait mode, but stays in landscape mode. Yes, you’re stuck with landscape, but at least it’s the right orientation when you’re lying down.
Thomas
12:35am, August 9
The idea of having a rotation lock may not be new, but having the lock icon show up on the screen when you change orientations so that you can easily unlock and change the orientation if you want to without having to stop what you are doing and go to a settings panel is great. I hope we see this idea developed further.
I would like to see Apple add the option to make orientation changes a more deliberate decision, especially in Mail and Safari as others have mentioned.
Jeff
2:12pm, August 13
If your iPhone is jailbroken, you can install SBSettings, which include a very nice rotation lock (for all apps), as well as autolock-preventer
Dan London
9:00am, August 27
I AGREE! i use my iPhone in bed and HATE that I can’t force the screen to not rotate. Luckily the RSS app I use does not rotate.
Awesome looking site and great apps.