Apple Support Blames App Developers for Major Limitation in iOS

[Windroid]

Product Name

iPad

iOS does not display vertical-only apps correctly, when using the iPad as a laptop (iPad standing horizontally, keyboard attached). This makes it impractical to use the keyboard with many apps, as it's only practical to use the keyboard when the iPad is positioned horizontally.

Specifically: Vertical-only apps appear sideways using the iPad as a laptop. Expected behavior is for vertical-only apps to appear right-side-up, but with black bars on the side of the screen, so that the apps are still vertical while the iPad is standing horizontally (like black bars on a square-screen TV when watching a widescreen movie).

This severely limits the iPad's usefulness as a laptop, but it gets worse: I asked Apple support how to have my iPad use black bars, so that I could use my iPad as a laptop with vertical-only apps. They said that that's not possible, and that I should complain to the app developers. That the operating system can't control how apps are displayed.

That's absurd. Ture, it'd be nice for all apps to have both horizontal and vertical orientation support. But the lack of black bars is an iOS problem, not an app problem, and blaming app developers for that is not appropriate behavior! It disrespects me by insulting my intelligence. It disrespects the app developers. And lastly, it disrespects the programmers of iOS by implying that they're not competent enough to fix this problem.

 

[ocnbrze]

sucks to be an owner of a crapple device. i am glad my android tablets do not have this issue. this sounds like crapple to blame the developers over their own shortcomings.

 

[Windroid]

sucks to be an owner of a crapple device. i am glad my android tablets do not have this issue. this sounds like crapple to blame the developers over their own shortcomings.

This experience has substantially lowered my view of Apple. Not so much for the iOS limitation (which is bad enough), but for the dishonesty of pinning the blame on the app developers. It's that dishonesty which makes me angry!

 

[Hadron]

Large companies often pass the buck, especially low-level support whose job is basically to close cases. I can easily cite more serious examples from Apple, but also from major Android manufacturers (not to mention phone service providers, financial institutions, utility companies, airlines,...).

But as for the question of how these apps display, are you sure it isn't down to the app developer? You say "expected behaviour is..." but is that "expected from the way the OS is supposed to work" or "what I'd expect"? There are Android apps that don't rotate with the phone (games in particular), and while you might say "well it would be useless if they did" that doesn't change the fact that there are apps where the developer has chosen to override the rotation. And there are apps where you can choose whether they should rotate or not. So on Android the app developer can choose an orientation and override the rotation, so how certain are you that the same is not true on iOS?

 

[Windroid]

But as for the question of how these apps display, are you sure it isn't down to the app developer? [...] There are Android apps that don't rotate with the phone (games in particular), and while you might say "well it would be useless if they did" that doesn't change the fact that there are apps where the developer has chosen to override the rotation.

I've found numerous apps which display improperly when the iPad is used as a laptop! I find it unlikely that the developers of all those apps meant to make their apps unusable when using the iPad as a laptop.

But even if they did: I'm the user. The operating system should obey me, not the app developer (at least in this case). The operating system should give me the option of black bars, whether the app developer likes it or not.

 

[Hadron]

Well I'm not a big iPad user, but have only encountered one (very old) app that does this (and a couple of others that only work in landscape mode). And while I agree it's unlikely that the developer decided "let's make this app unusable when the iPad is used as a laptop", it's less unlikely that they only thought about the iPad being used as a handheld tablet and had just designed a portrait layout. Especially if they designed it for a phone and did a quick and dirty port to the tablet (unlike Android Apple do require them to write a tablet version, but I've seen one or two that clearly gave very little thought to how it would work on the larger screen).

But if iPadOS does work like Android in this respect, and the developer can choose to just allow one orientation, then there's no point saying "the OS shouldn't let them do this". In principle it should be easier for Apple to do what you want now than it used to be: display scaling, which would be needed for what you ask, was for a long time a weakness of iOS/iPadOS, but they introduced better support in version 16. But you probably have more chance of persuading an app developer that some people use their iPads in landscape mode with a keyboard so maybe they could support that than you have of persuading a mega corporation to change their OS (a statement that would be equally true of Google or Microsoft as it is of Apple). Assuming, of course, that the app is still being actively maintained...

 

[Windroid]

It's unlikely that the developer decided "let's make this app unusable when the iPad is used as a laptop" [...] But if iPadOS does work like Android in this respect, and the developer can choose to just allow one orientation, then there's no point saying "the OS shouldn't let them do this".

Why not? Operating systems stop apps from misbehaving all the time! As an extreme example: A modern OS won't let an app format the system disk (usually the C drive on Windows). Control over orientation is ultimately the OS's, not the app's. The app only has whatever control the OS lets it have.

 

[Hadron]

Define "misbehaving" though? That's the problem: you are asserting what you think the correct behaviour should be and are saying that the OS should enforce this. But there are no laws of nature here: Android certainly allows developers to say "I'm only designing a portrait/landscape interface for this, and that's what you are getting", so why is it wrong if iOS does that too?

And note, I don't know for sure whether the Apple answer was the truth or a fob-off. I'm just saying that it's not obviously a lie, since it's perfectly valid for them to decided when designing the OS that they won't force app developers to have both portrait and landscape interfaces, and if a developer hurts themselves by not providing an app that's usable in landscape mode that's their problem.

But really the reason I say there's no point saying that is because it doesn't achieve anything. Complaining about the OS provider will achieve absolutely zero. Complaining to them is a long shot - large companies generally are the worst at responding to customers - but is worth trying because if nobody does they will think that everything is fine (I have complained to these big companies about choices they make which I feel make their devices less usable, for that reason). But if you actually want something to change you are more likely to achieve it by addressing the problem to the app developer, since they definitely do have the ability to change this and, having much smaller customer bases, your voice should carry more weight. Plus if they add a landscape interface it's likely to be more usable than a shrunken version of the portrait interface, so a better result than what the OS vendor can provide.

 

[Windroid]

Android certainly allows developers to say "I'm only designing a portrait/landscape interface for this, and that's what you are getting", so why is it wrong if iOS does that too?

That's the wrong question! The question is not if operating systems (be it Android or iOS) should, generally speaking, respect app's request to me locked to a specific screen orientation. The question if is apps should be locked to portrait orientation when useing the iPad as a laptop. Clealry the answer is no, if you want those apps to be useable when the iPad is a laptop (see the image in my first post).

Complaining about the OS provider will achieve absolutely zero. Complaining to them is a long shot - large companies generally are the worst at responding to customers - but is worth trying because if nobody does they will think that everything is fine

Yes, that's what I'm doing here. I'm making a public complaint to them. I think they're more likely to respond if embarrassed into doing so.

But if you actually want something to change you are more likely to achieve it by addressing the problem to the app developer

That's an endless game of wack-a-mole! I can't address all the app developers out there.

Plus if they add a landscape interface it's likely to be more usable than a shrunken version of the portrait interface, so a better result than what the OS vendor can provide.

I'm using the biggest iPad there is. That shrunken version of the portrait interface, while hardly ideal, is far from unusable.

 

[mikedt]

I'm happy I don't have an iOS device.

 

[nickdalzell]

I still say it's odd that Pokemon Go has to put a warning to be aware of your surroundings on it. The game isn't that immersive or interesting. People's brains have seriously shrunk since smartphones have happened.

However I have had many apps force portrait mode on a tablet in landscape as well, even on Android. Heck, even my oldest Samsung tablets do it often if an app wants to ask for permission or pops up about an update. It's like nobody, Apple, or Android, expects us to use landscape all the time. It does not help it that Google axed Tablet UI back in Kitkat, either, and today, forgets or refuses to admit that tablets still exist.

The most annoying Apple issue for me was when an iPad app tries to be an iPhone app, so all you got was a literal 'postage stamp' size app, right in the middle centre of the screen. No Android device ever had that issue.

 

[Windroid]

I still say it's odd that Pokemon Go has to put a warning to be aware of your surroundings on it. The game isn't that immersive or interesting. People's brains have seriously shrunk since smartphones have happened.

It'd hadly be practical to play Pokemon Go on a laptop anyway. However, Pokemon Go was just a random vertical-only app I brought up to demonstrate this iOS problem.

The most annoying Apple issue for me was when an iPad app tries to be an iPhone app, so all you got was a literal 'postage stamp' size app, right in the middle centre of the screen. No Android device ever had that issue.

That's not my experence, I'd always had an option to expand the app beyond "postige stamp" size.

 

[nickdalzell]

My life with iPad stopped when my iPad 3 got iOS 7. So hopefully the whole postage stamp thing finally got fixed.

 

[Hadron]

That's the wrong question! The question is not if operating systems (be it Android or iOS) should, generally speaking, respect app's request to me locked to a specific screen orientation. The question if is apps should be locked to portrait orientation when useing the iPad as a laptop. Clealry the answer is no, if you want those apps to be useable when the iPad is a laptop (see the image in my first post).

Other than being in landscape mode and connected to a keyboard what does "using an iPad as a laptop" mean? I'll bet there is no special "laptop mode", so this really does just mean "in landscape orientation".

And what if Apple say "if the developer wants the app to be usable in that mode then it's easy for them to do. If they don't, that's the developer's problem because it reduces the audience for their app"? Because that seems to be the gist of their response. Your answer seems to be "then they are wrong", but where does that get you?

Yes, that's what I'm doing here. I'm making a public complaint to them. I think they're more likely to respond if embarrassed into doing so.

No, you are moaning about them in a small forum (sorry Rob!) that is nothing to do with them, which I will guarantee they are not proactively monitoring for feedback on their products. If that's your strategy I suspect you'd have more chance of them noticing in the Macrumors forums or on Reddit, but I still think the threshold for them to take notice will be quite high.

Sorry, I know I'm over-reacting here. I think it's just the description of this as a "major OS limitation" has me feeling it's all a bit over the top (especially when the example you show is a game that's intended to be used when carrying the device around, not when sat at a desk with a keyboard attached). And comparisons with safety or security restrictions that an operating system might impose on an app doesn't help with that.

 

[Hadron]

My life with iPad stopped when my iPad 3 got iOS 7. So hopefully the whole postage stamp thing finally got fixed.

No, I have one app that does that. I gave feedback to the developer, stopped using it, 2 years later they'd done nothing so I deleted it.

It is slightly surprising that Apple allowed that in the first place. They used to make a fuss about how they required apps to be written for a tablet rather than just letting phone apps stretch to the screen (as many Android apps do on tablets), and also about checking apps met some minimum standard before approving them. And yet there are apps whose "tablet" version is basically an iPhone display (pre-retina from the size) in the middle of the screen. But they do rotate when you rotate the tablet! .

 

[Windroid]

I'll bet there is no special "laptop mode", so this really does just mean "in landscape orientation".

Correct, there is no special "laptop mode". That's the problem! iOS lacks the following functions:

#1: Laptop mode.

#2: An option for the user to manually override an app's request to be locked to a specific orientation.

Ether function would allow me to properly use the iPad as a laptop, with vertical-only apps.

 

[Windroid]

No, you are moaning about them in a small forum (sorry Rob!) that is nothing to do with them, which I will guarantee they are not proactively monitoring for feedback on their products.

Fair point, which is why I've also submitted this as a bug report to Apple. Actually, my original post is a modified version of that bug report (hence the use of language such as "expected behavior").

(especially when the example you show is a game that's intended to be used when carrying the device around, not when sat at a desk with a keyboard attached)

That app is just a random vertical-only app I used to demonstrate this problem. So it doesn't matter what this particular app is meant for; I could just as well have shown another random vertical-only app.

And comparisons with safety or security restrictions that an operating system might impose on an app doesn't help with that.

Why not? Ture, the concern here is usability rather than security. But my point stands, does it not? Operating systems are not beholden to obey the commands of programs. They can and do ignore commands when the situation calls for it.

I could cite examples of that in the realm of usability (rather than rather than security), but why bother? I've already explained the concept of operating systems ignoring problematic commands from programs. I think the example I gave is enough for you to get my point.

Sorry, I know I'm over-reacting here. I think it's just the description of this as a "major OS limitation" has me feeling it's all a bit over the top

I think you're being far too lenient here! If Apple's going to make the iPad into a laptop, then they should put at least a minimal effort into getting apps to work right when the iPad is a laptop. Considering how much I paid for that iPad, I don't think that's an unreasonable exaptation.

 

[nickdalzell]

No, I have one app that does that. I gave feedback to the developer, stopped using it, 2 years later they'd done nothing so I deleted it.

It is slightly surprising that Apple allowed that in the first place. They used to make a fuss about how they required apps to be written for a tablet rather than just letting phone apps stretch to the screen (as many Android apps do on tablets), and also about checking apps met some minimum standard before approving them. And yet there are apps whose "tablet" version is basically an iPhone display (pre-retina from the size) in the middle of the screen. But they do rotate when you rotate the tablet! .

This is also the same Apple who decided the iPad was too good to have a calculator or weather app as well.

 

[Hadron]

Actually in my experience the iPad has both of those. Not saying they are good, but I've never known any manufacturer's calculator app to be worth the storage it takes up, regardless of the OS.

 

[nickdalzell]

The iPad has never had a native calculator or weather app:

Why is the Apple calculator app not on th… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

Where’s the Weather app on the iPad? - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

If I use any calculator app, I have the HP 12c financial calculator app on my devices, because it's perhaps the only skeuomorphic app that can do it. Not many 'modern' skeuomorphic or frutiger aero apps left anymore. I refuse to adapt to flat UI. Been there in the CP/M era, don't want to redo it.

 

[Hadron]

The iPad has never had a native calculator or weather app:

One problem with the internet as an information source is that it is a source of out of date information. In fact my iPad has a native weather app, because Apple included it 4 months after that comment was posted.

My default calculator is RealCalc on my phone, which is actually skeuomorphic, though as you know that isn't something I am bothered about (I just checked and the 2 other calculators I use occasionally both have flattish skins selected, though at least one of them does have some skeuomorphic options).

 

[nickdalzell]

You sure? There's people on YouTube even mentioning it.

 

[driodUser]

iPad Air 2nd generation is horrible. I haven't had a major update in months. It seems to be useless.