iPadOS 26 and the Still-Broken Icon Layout on Rotation

[Johnny London]

It’s honestly baffling that with iPadOS 26 on the horizon, Apple still hasn’t addressed the fundamentally flawed icon behavior when rotating between portrait and landscape modes. Icons shift, rearrange, and jump across the screen in a way that completely breaks spatial memory. It’s jarring, unintuitive, and unworthy of a company that prides itself on seamless UX.

What we need is simple: a fixed, consistent grid — same number of vertical and horizontal icons in both orientations — with icons that rotate with the screen instead of scrambling themselves like puzzle pieces.

Anyone else thinking about this?

 

[BigBlur]

I'm pretty sure that's how it's designed to work. It has been that way ever since widgets were allowed on the home screens.

Say you have a 1x2 or a 2x4 widget on the Home Screen and you rotate the device; they need to move/shift somewhere else since they don't morph into a 2x1 or 4x2 widget.

What you need to do is go into edit mode and configure the layout in one orientation, then rotate to the other orientation and configure the layout again. iPadOS will remember the layout for both orientations. So if you want the icons to rotate with the screen, you can already do that (assuming you don't use any rectangular widgets).

 

[Johnny London]

I'm pretty sure that's how it's designed to work. It has been that way ever since widgets were allowed on the home screens.

Say you have a 1x2 or a 2x4 widget on the Home Screen and you rotate the device; they need to move/shift somewhere else since they don't morph into a 2x1 or 4x2 widget.

What you need to do is go into edit mode and configure the layout in one orientation, then rotate to the other orientation and configure the layout again. iPadOS will remember the layout for both orientations. So if you want the icons to rotate with the screen, you can already do that (assuming you don't use any rectangular widgets).

Thank you very much! This solved my problem 100%. How did I not know this Should I keep this thread up for others? It doesn't seem to be a common question.

 

[xdexina]

It’s honestly baffling that with iPadOS 26 on the horizon, Apple still hasn’t addressed the fundamentally flawed icon behavior when rotating between portrait and landscape modes. Icons shift, rearrange, and jump across the screen in a way that completely breaks spatial memory. It’s jarring, unintuitive, and unworthy of a company that prides itself on seamless UX.

What we need is simple: a fixed, consistent grid — same number of vertical and horizontal icons in both orientations — with icons that rotate with the screen instead of scrambling themselves like puzzle pieces.

Anyone else thinking about this?

Essentially, you can have two different grids (portrait and landscape) and edit them separately! If you edit it portrait you get the portrait icons in the order of your choice. And then simply do the same.

Due to home screen proportions, clear spots and widgets, it's not possible anymore to have an uniform grid.

 

[richpjr]

Thank you very much! This solved my problem 100%. How did I not know this Should I keep this thread up for others? It doesn't seem to be a common question.

It took me a while before I figured this out as well and I'm still not sure how I missed it!