By Nearly every tool, utility and application that we’ve tested has a fairly standard list of complaints and among them are the fact that (1) When you open the keyboard, your “place” in the application is lost and, (2) When you change the direction you are holding the screen, its orientation does not change.
Now, thanks to some clever developers, the latter of those irritations can be crossed off the list. By downloading and running a file on your G1 you can implement Auto Screen Rotation! It currently works with RC29 and RC30 but I’m sure they’ll release an update once RC31 is released:
The Auto Rotation won’t work EVERYWHERE, for example, on the web browser… but its a start! So chalk up another victory for open source development. While many (*ahem* ifanboys *ahem*) would proclaim that the G1 should have had this built in anyways and its a fault – not an attribute – I offer 3 single words as a rebuttal: copy and paste.
The ability for developers to fill these gaps, identified by the community, is attractive and effective. As a next step we’d like to see the Google Android team looking to build this progress into the core updates in upcoming over the air updates and whatnot.
Will we? Perhaps… but patience is needed. Much more will be lost by acting in haste than will be gained by making a few rather cosmetic changes.
You can find the directions for downloading and running this update on Droid Sans.
…yeah, but you left out that fact that you have to have root access to use this app. I don’t have root access (don’t need it), so it won’t work for me.
Really though. Is there really a need for this, considering that one line in the XML file and overriding a single method in the main activity allows for full control of your program’s autorotation and keyboard layout. Not to mention how to lock it in place.
Look here under AndroidGuys.com’s Building Droids: http://androidguys.com/?cat=7
The Rotational Forces episodes show how to have complete control of the activities orientation.
Now for the rest of the apps… I don’t really know. All we can do is encourage the use of these methods.
Great feature!
But for sure the phone section shouldn’t be using the landscape mode… :P it just not needed… But the rest very niceee!
What is the file name that I have to download. Thanks.
Why wont this work for me I have the RC33 update and it keeps saying auto rotation operation failed. Can you some how fix this so it will work for that update. Also if you can’t do thta can you tell me how to remove the RC33 update and replace it with the RC30 update. Thanks
The auto rotate works for me, except for the one thing I downloaded it for… it will not auto rotate pictures! It auto rotates videos fine and every app exept Web, pictures and some games.
I have JF RC33 rooted on my T-Mobile G1