Depends on who you are video calling and what they are using for the video call. If you are calling phones then portrait is better, but work calls like Teams and Zoom landscape is better because the apps are designed around displaying horizontal rectangles and everyone using a laptop for them, which is the majority, is using landscape. Apple doesn't really sell any cases or keyboards which can hold the iPad in Portrait orientation so your eye-contact looks like worse than if the camera were centered over the iPad/keyboard because you aren't looking at the camera.
Hmm how do those apps handle portrait video streams and portrait screens? If they shrink portrait video to fit them into a landscape rectangle with empty space on either side, that’s not good. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen at least one app crop the sides of landscape video (empty space on either side of the person) to fit more people into a screen in gallery view. I think that would be a good feature for a video call app in portrait mode. Anyway, yeah it would be great if the apps could accommodate both portrait video streams and portrait viewing.
I agree, but they would have to increase the MK's weight to stop the whole thing from tipping backwards due to the iPad being taller and more top-heavy.
Yeah, it would be good if the extra top weight could be addressed somehow. More base weight wouldn’t be ideal obviously. Maybe they could come up with some other clever design element to help keep it balanced at more angles. If not, then I suppose the user would just have to limit the range of tilt on their own. But either way, I don’t see it as a huge issue since portrait would just be optional. So the user could just use it when seen fit, like when at a desk and not needing to lean the iPad back too far.
When it comes to Apple users, you know it's not just as simple as saying something is optional. If Apple doesn't account for that, we're all going to have to listen to people complaining about #ipadtipovergate. Not to mention a bunch of noise about how Steve Jobs would never.
When you see the PIP of the other caller on iPads, if they're vertical and you're horizontal, the PIP is square. If you're both horizontal the PIP is rectangular.
