Should Landscape View of the home screen be disabled?

[gatorbait]

[Or alternatively, but less likely since it requires more work from Google: Should all Android devices have the option to allow landscape view on the home screen?]

It seems like a lot of the incompatibility of the 2.1 apps and problems with other options that Google has pushed to the Nexus One stems from the fact that the Droid is the only Android phone that can force landscape view on its home screens (please correct me if I'm wrong. I suppose the Devour will be the second?).

Would you prefer it if Google removed the option to force landscape on the home screens of Android phones by opening the keyboard if it meant that apps could be created quicker and with more compatible results?

 

[x25064]

I don't see where it would make much of a difference one way or another. Most apps and games will be designed for landscape mode anyway, so its really not an issue. Maybe I'm just not understanding what your getting at here.

 

[gatorbait]

I don't see where it would make much of a difference one way or another. Most apps and games will be designed for landscape mode anyway, so its really not an issue. Maybe I'm just not understanding what your getting at here.

Maybe you're not understanding me correctly. Think about this: when you open your hardware keyboard, all your home screens switch to landscape view. All your widgets and some other features (new launchers, live wallpapers, etc) need to be skinned and coded to work in both vertical and landscape view.

No landscape view would also solve the problem that some users have about the odd spacing of icons and widgets on the home screens. They sometimes have weird spacing because they need to still be able to fit on screen when you switch to landscape. We could probably have 5 rows of icons instead of four if they didn't need to be squished into landscape view.

 

[dylanthecat]

i would find it really anoying if I opened the keyboard and the home screen did not change to landscape. That really would not make any sense.

 

[Samstag]

It's so easy to make widgets work in both modes that any developer who can't handle it doesn't need to be on the marketplace.

 

[kodiak799]

Isn't there a setting to disable switching to landscape?

 

[dylanthecat]

Isn't there a setting to disable switching to landscape?

Yep but when the keyboard is open it still rotates as it should.

 

[x25064]

I agree with the general consensus here. Kind of going back tovmy initial post, its not really an issue. Like others have stated, an app that doesn't work in both landscape and portrait I find to be rather annoying. Moreso if it lacked landscape support since that seems to be more of the primary function of it. (Ie. games etc).

Contrary to what your saying, I would like to see more apps, games specifically, support portrait mode. As far as apps I really do t run into the spacing issue you mention. And the icon spacing on the homescreen will not be an issue with the release of 2.1 and its five homescreens.