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iPhone 4 Photo's & Video Rotating Sideways In Email

When I take photo's & video's holding my iPhone 4 straight up and down (portrait mode), the iPhone 4 rotates photo's and video's sideways when emailed from iPhone to another person's email address. Has anyone else had this problem? The photo's & video's look perfect when viewing on the iPhone but turn out sideways when emailed.

I called Apple support about this and they said it was likely a software problem, but said not enough compliants have come in to push a priority fix for it. They said a future iOS update may fix the problem.

I spent $299 for my phone and I want this fixed. What recourse do I have? I've had the phone for about 6 weeks. Any advice?

iPhone 4, iOS 4, updated to iOS 4.0.1

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 7:44 AM

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75 replies

Aug 17, 2010 8:05 PM in response to TennisGuy007

I have the same problem. When I copy video over to my PC, if they were not shot in landscape mode at the correct orientation, they will either be upside down or sideways. The UI on the phone rotates with the physical orientation of the phone, however the video does not. Some have made the argument that this is the way it should be because you could be videoing upside down on purpose. However if this is the case they should have an option to turn this off if desired. At the least they should change the UI so that it is obvious when you are recording upside down or sideways.

To add more confusion to this the correct landscape orientation is different depending on what camera is beind used on the iPhone 4. So if you are using the camera on the back of the phone the correct orientation is landscape with the home button on the right. If you are using the camera on the front of the phone the correct orientation is landscape with the home button on the left. Hopefully there will be a fix for this to at least be able to shoot video in portrait mode!

Aug 18, 2010 7:03 AM in response to JDark

I've transferred video from the iPhone 4 to my computer but haven't played them to see how they look. I will try to remember to do that tonight. And I haven't tried sending pictures or video using the front facing camera to see if that works. I will try that as well.

I called Apple about this issue and the guy on the phone tested his device and it sent video and pictures correctly. So I guess only certain phones have this "bug"...much like certain iPhones 4 have a proximity sensor issues, but mine doesn't seem to have this issue.

After paying $299 plus tax for the phone, I expect it to work correctly. I didn't have a big issue (although I want it to work as it should) with the iPhone 4 antennae as I was going to use a case with the phone anyway, so that didn't bother me too much. But paying $300 for a phone, I expect everything else to work properly. We'll see if Apple steps up to the plate. Need more people to call and report this problem with the pictures/videos so they will get on a fix.

Aug 27, 2010 1:48 PM in response to TennisGuy007

Just wanted to let you know that I have this problem too. You are not alone. Looks like there are a bunch of people with this issue. Everyone says that all iphones are like this, but I got my IP4 a week ago, and before that I never had to rotate my 3G any certain way to get the pics to turn out the way I wanted. When I turn the ip4 sideways to take a pic, I want it to show as landscape in my camera roll...right now if I showed anyone my pics, they would have to crane their necks sideways to see my pics. Unacceptable.

Aug 27, 2010 3:25 PM in response to lilbunny0923

I can view the pictures and video correctly on my iPhone 4; that doesn't seem to be the issue for me. However, when I email pictures or video in portrait mode (phone upright), then it rotates both 90 degrees on its side. Same thing happens when I transfer the pictures and video to my PC and try to view the same pictures and video.

My fear is that this is not a widespread issue, even though Apple said it was, and that a fix may take months to come, if ever. I read that many people are having proximity sensor problems when holding the phone up to their ear when talking, but mine seems to be ok (assuming I understand what exactly that sensor is all suppose to do).

$299 for a phone, after years of R&D and supposedly field testing, should be better than this. I under their new antennae might be revolutionary and may pose some unexpected problems, but emailing pictures & video has been around a while & is nothing revolutionary.

Call Apple and complain about this issue not working for you. We all need to complain about this so they will get a fix for it. Supposedly, a new iOS update is coming in a couple of weeks. I will wait for that update before calling Apple back.

Oct 5, 2010 7:31 PM in response to TennisGuy007

Same issue here with the few iPhones 4s we have. Any playback on a Windows PC is sideways, unless you're using Quicktime, which will play it in the correct orientation. The only workarounds I've found is either using Quicktime, or using Windows Live Movie Maker to rotate the video. The problem with Movie Maker is that you have to save it as a wmv after you've rotated it.

http://techierambles.blogspot.com/2010/10/iphone-video-always-shows-sideways-aka .html

Oct 5, 2010 8:02 PM in response to TennisGuy007

I mostly work on Macs, so am not expert here.

But I have had troubles with PCs reading the correct orientation of photos before.

It might be that the Quicktime tag to tell your player the orientation is not read by your standard video player.
When I open "vertical" videos in vlc they play wrongly rotated as you have.

But Quicktime player plays them correctly.

I would suggest this is not an iphone issue, but your video player not 'reading' all the quicktime tags.
The best thing to do is contact the company that makes your video software and complaining to them.

Or rotate with another program as described above.

Oct 5, 2010 8:08 PM in response to rslygh

I don't have this issue. I am wondering how many people who have this problem are using Windows as I think that possibly some Windows software may not be recognizing the rotation. The iPhone may be using a method to indicate the orientation that some software does not recognize. I think that the reason some people don't see this problem is that if they are on a Mac, most video output is based on Quicktime. Agree with the work-around of using editing software to rotate the video.

One question. If the orientation is already correct for you in Quicktime, how are you rotating it to make it correct in other programs, or do you just need to export it to fix it?

If I am correct and it's a "rotation tag" that the iPhone uses to mark the rotation, I'm not sure there is an easy fix for them to implement, unless there's another way that the rotation can be marked that is more recognizable.

I use a GoPro helmet cam for recording video as well and they recently added recording upside down to support mounting the camera different ways. I don't know if I'll ever use this though, because it's easier to flip the video in my desktop software than navigate to the setting on the camera.

Oct 26, 2010 7:33 AM in response to EBSkater

Apple did a warranty exchange for my iPhone 4 as a result of my compliants about the pictures. They thought it might be a hardware problem with the phone, but the new phone does the same thing.

People with Mac's probably have some kind of Mac picture software that correctly positions the pictures and video. Apple had me download a piece of picture software from the web onto my PC and it correctly positioned all of my iPhone 4 portrait mode pictures and videos.

I'm still not happy about all of this, but I don't know what else to do. I just take landscape pictures and video as much as I can. Ironically, I opened a Gmail account to test how it sees the pictures and videos, and the portrait mode pictures were correctly positioned when using Gmail. However, they were incorrect when using Yahoo & Hotmail email.

Nov 2, 2010 10:06 AM in response to Tom Alperin

I just had this issue with one of my video clips from a recent wedding reception. I always shoot in landscape mode and all clips played back fine in MPEG Streamclip except for one of them. It plays with the video frame rotated 90 degrees CW. VLC on the other hand, plays the clip correctly. You are correct that there is some type of orientation flag bit in the file header. I just need to find and change it for this one clip.

BTW, as for your GoPro camera, the upside down thing is useful if you want to 'hang' the camera from something. That way, your video is recorded right side up. I have a GoPro also and have used that new feature a couple times already.

Nov 2, 2010 1:45 PM in response to VibrantRedGT

Apple sets the jpeg meta tag for orientation when you shoot a photo, so if you hold the iphone upside down, or sideways, etc, the image (which is shot upside down or sideways, since the camera is upside down/sideways) knows it needs to flip/rotate the image when you look at it.

Not all software honors the rotation settings. Gimp (which runs on everything, and is free) does.

You can rotate images and save them, or learn to shoot photos with the iPhone in the correct orientation for non-rotated images. That would be with the home button to the right as you look at the screen.

iPhone 4 Photo's & Video Rotating Sideways In Email

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