18. Supporting Device Rotation

It is important that iPad apps support all device orientations, but what does this actually mean? It means that your application should rotate the user interface to match the orientation of the device. Most iPhone applications can get away with not rotating because of the small form factor of the phone and the way users hold it, but the same is not true for the iPad.

An iPhone user tends to hold the device in a portrait orientation with the Home button at the bottom. An iPad user, in contrast, will hold the iPad in different orientations based on how she picks it up. If your app does not rotate based on the current orientation, you force the user to rotate her iPad, which is not an ideal user experience.

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