Why doesn’t screen mirroring support Facetime in landscape orientation?

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Level 1

23 points

Why doesn’t screen mirroring support Facetime in landscape orientation?

I would like to use my smart tv to display Facetime from my iPhone 11 Pro. In the age of COVID-19, I don’t want my whole family huddled around a 5” screen to chat with friends and relatives. Additionally, I have a mount for my phone by the smart tv, so that viewers on the other end of Facetime can see my family comfortably sitting in my living room.

I am able to screen mirror via:

1) Airplay through AppleTV to my television; and

2) direct connection with my lightning-to-HDMI connector

HOWEVER, If I rotate my iPhone to display in landscape mode to fill my tv screen and provide a landscape display from my iPhone camera, the screen mirror does not rotate with iPhone when using Facetime. This appears to me to be a software glitch in the Facetime app. Most other apps on my iPhone project a landscape view in screen mirroring (via both Airplay and direct connection).

It seems as though this may be by design, that Apple does not want customers to use their large smart tv displays to Facetime.

Is there a workaround or other setting available to fix this condition? I suspect many people would choose to use such a feature while we’re all holed up in our homes for the next few weeks/months.

iPhone 11 Pro, iOS 13

Posted on Mar 20, 2020 8:52 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Chris.Lo

Level 1

9 points

Apr 20, 2020 9:48 AM in response to slynch19

How are more people not posting their annoyance at this. Locked into portrait rotation on AirPlay Mirroring to get a family of 4 into a FaceTime call is absolutely ridiculous. Come on. Why is this still happening. I have been waiting years literally for this to be fixed. It used to work in landscape once upon a time.

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Answer 2

May 10, 2020 3:24 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

Unless you're locked in portrait mode, an iphone is able to display facetime screens in landscape mode. The problem is that when screen sharing to a TV, facetime projects only in portrait mode regardless of the iphone orientation..

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Answer 3

slynch19 Author

Level 1

23 points

Mar 24, 2020 6:47 AM in response to slynch19

I have since tested WhatsApp, Skype, and Google Hangouts for the ability to screen mirror in landscape orientation. WhatsApp demonstrated similar results to Facetime, where both ends of the Facetime or WhatsApp connection holding their phones in landscape orientation result in a portrait orientation in screen mirror (i.e. displaying landscape, but rotated 90 degrees, only using the middle 1/3 of the television display).

However, both Skype and Google Hangouts were able to correctly display the screen mirroring in landscape orientation.

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Answer 4

ChrisJ4203

Level 10

230,479 points

Apr 27, 2020 9:37 AM in response to Chris.Lo

Posting here does not get Apple to know of your frustration. Apple gets user feedback on their Feedback page. This is a user to user support forum and Apple does not participate here. Use this link for feedback, Feedback - iPhone - Apple

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Answer 5

slynch19 Author

Level 1

23 points

Mar 21, 2020 9:28 AM in response to SravanKrA

Changing the aspect ratio does not fix the problem. The screen mirroring is only presenting Facetime in portrait orientation. I want it in landscape orientation. I would need an option on the television to rotate the display 90 degrees, and I do not have that option.

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Answer 6

maknik

Level 1

4 points

Apr 27, 2020 9:31 AM in response to slynch19

We're currently switching our extended family from Facetime to Zoom because of this. A glitch that has apparently existed for years suggests it will not be fixed any time soon. One fewer reason not to switch to Android.

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Answer 7

Apr 27, 2020 9:36 AM in response to maknik

maknik wrote:

We're currently switching our extended family from Facetime to Zoom because of this. A glitch that has apparently existed for years suggests it will not be fixed any time soon. One fewer reason not to switch to Android.

You might want to read this first:

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes

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Answer 8

Chris.Lo

Level 1

9 points

Apr 27, 2020 10:21 AM in response to slynch19

Yeah of course. But what about when you Airplay mirror this landscape view to your AppleTV? It doesn’t work. Apple wants you to use your iPhone in portrait mode. Try it and see for yourself.

It also used to be the case when you bought the Plus model iPhones you had more landscape mode abilities. Now they want you to stay in portrait view.

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Answer 9

slynch19 Author

Level 1

23 points

Apr 27, 2020 10:34 AM in response to Chris.Lo

Yes, that’s why I started this thread last month. I can use Facetime in landscape mode on my iPhone, but landscape mode doesn’t work in Facetime when I screen mirror either via Airplay or a Lightning-to-HDMI hard line. It should. And I don’t know why it doesn’t. But I will take ChrisJ4203’s suggestion and post this issue on Apple’s feedback page.

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Answer 10

macobs30

Level 1

47 points

May 17, 2020 6:04 AM in response to slynch19

Hi. Did you find a solution? I have an iPhone 11 and an TV 4th Gen..

Similar issue here:

=> I like to live stream the iPhone camera to the big stream TV in landscape mode. I found another discussion here in this forum from Nov. 2019 with an official reply from Apple that this feature is currently not supported. I cannot think of any good reason why this is not supported.

Maybe my settings are wrong and there is a simple fix. Would love to see it.

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Answer 11

May 26, 2020 9:04 PM in response to Lawrence Finch

FaceTime does in fact rotate on the iPhone screen. Which is why it is so frustrating that it does not rotate on the screen mirroring. Apple needs to pull up their socks here. Pretty embarrassing really.

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Answer 12

Moose192

Level 1

13 points

Apr 6, 2020 4:52 PM in response to slynch19

Seems that Zoom also works to rotate into landscape. Maybe Apple will fix this issue with FaceTime before everyone migrates their primary video calling software to one of these.

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