Texting in landscape mode.

While I agree with others that landscape texting would be quite nice, it doesn't really seem practical with the size of the keyboard in that mode. There is very little screen space above the keyboard, and you would find yourself scrolling a LOT more. Sure you could read the text in portrait and then actually type in landscape, but that's a lot of flipping back and forth... unless they resize the keyboard a bit or something, I don't think it would be very practical in actual usage...

 

Someone on here did a mockup of what it would look like and you could only see the last two messages I think. I'm 100% fine with the current text setup, especially because I've gotten so used to the compact keyboard.

 

yeah but its sooo much easier typing in landscape

 

Now that I'm used to typing in portrait view I can't type in landscape. You get used to it I guess.

 

I don't like landscape. I type 100x's faster in portrait now anyway.

 

It works fine in Safari.

They could always make the keys a fraction smaller.

I'd love it to be in the next update.

 

well not just texts from months ago... I have friends that will text me asking something and we'll reply to one another sporadically and may exchange 3 or 4 texts over the period of an hour or more. If we're busy doing something else and lose track of something that was said, it's helpful to be able to refer back to it, and in the current portrait orientation, you don't have to scroll... or if you do, it's very minimal. granted, this probably isn't an everyday situation, but I imagine it does exist on a larger scale.

I don't know, maybe we'll see it and maybe we won't. It could be another feature that's on Apple's "list" but it isn't high enough priority... like cut & paste

 

I agree. This is not something that I am really looking for. I'd rather Apple work on other issues with the iPhone: MMS, 3G problems, etc.

 

Ok let me state something that REALLY annoys me on these boards: everybody defends apples decisions to OMIT things that seem logical with petty excuses as their defense.

Sure, if you don't want to see only the last 2 messages, keep your phone upright. I believe that the choice of landscape mode will not harm anybody, considering they are not forcing you to use it! Personally, when I'm typing up a text message, it's usually after I've read the previous ones, and all I need is for the screen to display the text I'm typing.

This is just how when 3G was omitted in the first gen iPhone, everybody made excuses as to how it was useless. As soon as they released the 3G iPhone, millions upon millions were sold, many of these upgrades from the 1st gen users who probably finally snapped out of their state of denial.

Oh and by the way: this feature would probably take a skilled apple programmer about 20 seconds to include.

 

wow, this is the first time I've heard of this idea!!! I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter, next month you can talk about how only one of your speakers works!

 

Totally agree.

 

"Practical" is only from a certain point of view.

I'm on the road a lot and my iPhone spends a lot of time mounted horizontally for video viewing. Its pretty frustrating that an incoming SMS will display as a landscape pop up, but the app itself will not.

I hardly use SMS as push email has now replaced it. When i do use SMS, 90% of the time I would use it in portrait for ease of visibility.

....but there is still a very annoying and glaring gap for the small percentage of time when I have to rotate my phone while mounted or (even worse) remove it to use while in a vehicle.

Adding landscape to SMS and others would add more hands free functionality to the iPhone for car usage.

(By Hands Free, i mean the extreme difference between using one finger to issue a few commands, type a few letters and send........and having to remove your device from its mount, cables and all, just to respond OK to a txt message)

 

I never understood why they didn't use the Accelerometer for the texting app. Seems kinda simple to me, if it works in Safari why couldn't it work in texting? I suppose they'll say they have more important things to work on, but this doesn't seem that hard to do imo.

 

It should be an option if for no other reason than to provide continuity between Safari and SMS. I would actually prefer to have the option to txt in landscape mode.

 

It is baffling that over a year later there's still no SMS and email landscape orientation.

Phazer