Why still portrait?

[Shanghaichica]

I use it in both landscape and portrait. Both orientations are very comfortable in the hand. I mainly use it in portrait of I'm using apps and sometimes for web browsing. Landscape when I'm watching videos and also sometimes when web browsing.

 

[throAU]

Why is the iPad still designed as a portrait device? Those of you who own iPads, what is the default way you hold it? I NEVER hold it portrait. Why not move the FaceTime camera to the top in landscape view? Why not put the home button on the bottom of landscape? I'm just wondering, does anyone default to portrait mode when they use their iPad?

1. its not designed to be use either way.
2. i used it either portrait or landscape depending on what i'm doing with it.

It is no more a portrait or landscape device than an A4 sheet of paper.

 

[TrueBlou]

Depends what I'm doing really, mine gets spun around more than your drunk uncle playing pin the tail on the donkey.

Notes with the Pencil, web browsing, News app and reading is mostly portrait. Everything else just gets flipped around depending on what it is.

 

[Ryan0751]

I used to use my iPad Air primarily in Portait mode, nearly always in fact. Now that I have the iPad Pro (12"), I almost exclusively use it in Landscape mode.

 

[stevemiller]

I browse online in portrait, but i can't believe facebook's site can't scale to the iPad in portrait. It always loads zoomed in like 25% and you have to pan around (or try to pinch to zoom out without going into tab view). Super annoying as notifications are basically obscured by the formatting.

So basically is the market for portrait tablet users so small that Facebook can't even be bothered to make a site that formats decently? Or am I in one of those godawful Facebook a/b tests to see how users react to a broken experience?

(Also snark about using Facebook at all is totally encouraged. 😉 I'd ditch it if I could but there are a few people who insist on using it)

 

[friedmud]

I use the iPad in landscape mode when I'm working on it, but if I grab it for quick reference things then it's in portrait. Plus when I use it in class to take notes I use it in portrait mode - though I'm considering using it upside down as I kept activating Siri by accident the other day (I should probably just learn to move the 'paper'!). Plus in landscape more having the home button on the right hand side is much easier for me.

I use my 12.9" iPP in Portrait probably 80% of the time... mostly because I use it for taking notes and reading papers... so it's useful to have it mimic real paper.

As for turning it upside down: this is a thing you learn VERY quickly after taking notes on the iPP in Portrait mode! I just instinctively use it upside down now.

The only issue I have with using it upside down is that some apps won't work upside down! In particular Google Inbox _refuses_ to rotate upside down! It will do landscape... but NOT upside down. Drives me crazy!

 

[zhenya]

I browse online in portrait, but i can't believe facebook's site can't scale to the iPad in portrait. It always loads zoomed in like 25% and you have to pan around (or try to pinch to zoom out without going into tab view). Super annoying as notifications are basically obscured by the formatting.

So basically is the market for portrait tablet users so small that Facebook can't even be bothered to make a site that formats decently? Or am I in one of those godawful Facebook a/b tests to see how users react to a broken experience?

(Also snark about using Facebook at all is totally encouraged. 😉 I'd ditch it if I could but there are a few people who insist on using it)

Not sure what issue you are having with Facebook but it works perfectly for me. The genius of the iPad's aspect ratio has long been that most web content is designed to fit perfectly in 768 pixels of width, aligning perfectly with the iPad's 768 points of width, meaning you can see an entire web page with no panning and nothing wasted on white space on the sides.

 

[jerwin]

The only issue I have with using it upside down is that some apps won't work upside down!

iPhone apps have had this sort of restriction before, probably
because holding a microphone to your ear and a speaker to your mouth won't really work. Disabling the "upside down" orientation helps prevent this.

The four speakers are designed to make the ipad orientation agnostic. If you're taking a poll to figure out which orientation to support in your app, you're DOING IT WRONG.

 

[SurFaceMac]

Keys are too far apart in landscape mode

 

[xraydoc]

75% portrait mode.

 

[stevemiller]

Not sure what issue you are having with Facebook but it works perfectly for me. The genius of the iPad's aspect ratio has long been that most web content is designed to fit perfectly in 768 pixels of width, aligning perfectly with the iPad's 768 points of width, meaning you can see an entire web page with no panning and nothing wasted on white space on the sides.

Gah! I checked chrome and it has the same issue, so it's not just mobile safari for me. There's also an issue where certain buttons on the site always require two taps before they activate.

they already drove me away from downloading their app with all their nonsense, and now for whatever reason they've made tablet web viewing miserable for me too! Although in the spirit of this topic, it's worth noting that rotating to landscape makes it fit perfectly, so it's delivering a 1024px site regardless of orientation :-/

 

[Cvx5832]

My iPads are locked to landscape; iPhones locked to portrait