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iPhone X No upside down rotation on the iPhone X?

M

mdlyen

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 3, 2015
61
80
Portland, Oregon
Sometimes I plug my phone in and place it upside down in the cup holder of my wife’s car and bring up waze.

The iPhone X doesn’t appear to allow apps to be displayed upside down. I realize the notch might be the reason, although in Waze’s case, the app hasn’t been updated for the iPhone X yet.

Is this true? Are there any examples of apps working while upside down? I haven’t found any. Maybe we will get this back in a future iOS update?
 
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Voice Memos was definitely allowed to be turned upside down. I have done it many times to record parts of a weekly rehearsal. Holding it upside down meant the mic was facing outward.

I just tried it now with the X, and it didn’t rotate. I guess that’s out. It’ll be interesting to see how it records.
 
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The iPhone 6 Plus did go upside down up to about iOS8.02 iirc.

It was really annoying as every time I pulled it out of my pocket it had to reorient as I always put phone in pocket upside down. For a while I was forced to use rotation lock, not ideal as it had to be disabled constantly for photo and video. Later fixed thankfully.

There ought really be an accessibility option for the OP to allow it.

Here’s an old thread about it with pics;

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-6-home-screen-upside-down-issue.1789165/
 
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I am in the exact same boat as the OP. I spend a fair amount of time on the road and use Apple maps, google maps and Waze. All three of these apps could be used upside down (cup holder) with charger plugged in.

I will look for a wireless charging solution to solve this issue. Has anyone used anything good for the car?
 
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MacintoshJosh3 said:
I am in the exact same boat as the OP. I spend a fair amount of time on the road and use Apple maps, google maps and Waze. All three of these apps could be used upside down (cup holder) with charger plugged in.

I will look for a wireless charging solution to solve this issue. Has anyone used anything good for the car?
Click to expand...

The more I thought about this, I realized that because the 7+ is considered an iPad (Lite) device, it would allow for upside down apps, but because the iPhone X is considered a phone, it doesn't allow it. I guess this makes sense. I just wish they allowed for this use case. I don't need it that often (only when driving my wife's car). I guess this is just something ex-plus users will need to get used to.
 
CobraPA said:
The 7 also rotates all the way around with Waze, so not an iPad or plus thing. Still does it here on 11.0.3. It's up to the apps to support it though.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize this. So that makes this seem more arbitrary then. I'm sure the notch has something to do with it. Unless there is something special developers have to do, because the non-X version of Waze doesn't rotate. I did some searching and found a Stack Overflow question that seems to indicate it is not allowed. I guess we will have to wait and see.
 
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mdlyen said:
I didn't realize this. So that makes this seem more arbitrary then. I'm sure the notch has something to do with it. Unless there is something special developers have to do, because the non-X version of Waze doesn't rotate. I did some searching and found a Stack Overflow question that seems to indicate it is not allowed. I guess we will have to wait and see.
Click to expand...


It is most definitely the notch. Apps would essentially have to specially design a software bezel to gap between notch and bottom of app. With a 7/7+ the app is displayed identically in either portrait orientation. I don’t foresee Apple allowing this in the future as they would have extreme issues getting developers to build everything consistently (just as they are now).
 
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I thought it was against Apple Human Interface Guidelines to allow the phone to rotate to upside down. Reason being that if a call comes in, then the user may forget the phone is upside down when they answer the call, resulting in a bad experience.
 
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MrGimper said:
I thought it was against Apple Human Interface Guidelines to allow the phone to rotate to upside down. Reason being that if a call comes in, then the user may forget the phone is upside down when they answer the call, resulting in a bad experience.
Click to expand...

I travel for work and would constantly get calls in the upside down orientation. The red and green buttons really make it difficult to accidents answer/decline. However I wouldn’t doubt that Apple had limitations in place for this.
 
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No, all devices up to the iPhone X have supported the upside down orientation. It seems that they have made a decision that this will not be supported in iPhone X.

MrGimper said:
I thought it was against Apple Human Interface Guidelines to allow the phone to rotate to upside down. Reason being that if a call comes in, then the user may forget the phone is upside down when they answer the call, resulting in a bad experience.
Click to expand...

I've seen no Guidelines like that. You can review them here: https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/visual-design/adaptivity-and-layout/

Actually, it looks like the guideline is the opposite, with an exclusion for the X.

Apple HIG said:
If it’s essential that your app run in a single orientation, support both variants. An app that runs only in landscape mode should be usable regardless of whether the user rotates the device left or right. An app that runs only in portrait mode should rotate its content 180 degrees when the user rotates the device 180 degrees—except on iPhone X, which doesn’t support upside-down portrait mode. If your app doesn’t rotate automatically when someone holds the device in the wrong orientation, they’ll know instinctively to rotate it. You don’t need to tell them.
Click to expand...
 
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ABC5S said:
No apps rotate upside down on my iPhone 8+ either.
Click to expand...

Seeing this in some cases on 8.

A different poster mentioned their various GPS apps used to rotate upside down: not seeing it on Apple or Google maps, but, MotionX-GPS does rotate upside down.

With others re: probably disabled upside-down mode on app basis for The Notch.
 
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ABC5S said:
No apps rotate upside down on my iPhone 8+ either.
Click to expand...
Can you check voice memos?
[doublepost=1509906399][/doublepost]
CobraPA said:
No, all devices up to the iPhone X have supported the upside down orientation. It seems that they have made a decision that this will not be supported in iPhone X.



I've seen no Guidelines like that. You can review them here: https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/visual-design/adaptivity-and-layout/

Actually, it looks like the guideline is the opposite, with an exclusion for the X.
Click to expand...
That helps, thanks.
 
This is annoying being I’m coming from an iPhone 7plus and used that upside down feature a lot while in Apple maps...oh well!!
 
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I'm in the exact same situation and just noticed this the other day. I was using Waze upside down on my 6 all the time as it was charging in the car (the app is a battery killer). It is not even updated to the new screen ratio, so the notch wouldn't get in the way (at least for now).
 
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