iPhone 4 Photo's & Video Rotating Sideways In Email

May I just add that this is particularly annoying when I'm sending pictures of "baby's first..." to an 84 year old relative. She's pretty high tech for her age, but still must view these by contorting her neck and upper body!

ALSO - if someone intends to film upside down, wouldn't it be nice if they could view the subject that way and know for sure it's filming as intended? I have tested the camera in both directions in order to guarantee the proper alignment, but it still seems to be hit or miss!! GRRR!!! APPLE PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!

I've done a little research on this topic, and it appears that the "answer" is that when Apple records video, it uses an EXIF tag to indcate the camera orentation. The newer iPhones support this tag, so they just attach the file as is, and display it according to the phone's current orientation and the EXIF tag in the file. The problem comes in that if sent as an email attachment, the receiving end might (or might not) properly use that same EXIF tag to display the video. It appears that many older applications, and some newer ones don't even look at this tag so they just display the file as it's attached and do not take the orientation tag into account. This is why you get some photos or videos on their side, and some upside down.

As for what's "right' and what's "wrong"? Well, that's a matter for discussion that may go on for a long time. Needless to say, according to the current standards, Apple is "right" but not all software follows the current standards, and for that software Apple is "wrong". Needless to say,during ths time of transition, those of us on the "bleeding edge" just need to think about backwards compatibility in what we do, and it may just be easier for us to take a few extra steps to make sure that others get the esperience we want them to get from our pictures or videos...

As you can read in my earlier response above, I believe that Apple is using EXIF for jpg file orientation of still photos.

Apple is certainly using something for providing orientation information for still images and videos. I have recorded about half a terrabyte of video per year with Apple iPhone and iPad 2 cameras, and am looking forward to using the new iPad 2S ( or iPad 3, what ever it is called) and the new iPad 5.

I take my videos in landscape mode with the home button on the right, with the + and - buttons on the bottom left of the iPhone 4S or iPad 2.

Apple provides developers with a software known as QTKit which automatically provides orientation metadata to the jpg still photo files and mov video files.

I have no idea if QTKit is writing EXIF metadata, or some other orientation metadata, in the jpg and mov files, but it is certainly writing something that orientation aware software in the Windows and Mac development world are able to read.

I am mildly curious about what orientation metadata Apple actually appends to the camera files. If any reader of this thread cares to provide such details I will be greatly appreciative.

At the end of the day, I do not need to know, as I know how to hold the camera so that orientation is not a problem for those I send images to, and I know how to open and save upside down, or sideways, images other folks send me when they hold their iPhone camera in one of the other three out of four of the possible home button locations.

What we all want to know is why is this just happening now though? I had the 3gs and recently got the 4s in November. I "think" some of the first pics with the 4s were fine???

I believe it's the EXIF issue too but there is another factor at play here. For correcting the orientation on my own computer I downloaded a freeware program off CNET called Faststone image viewer that would both rotate and save the pic in the new orientation. Here's what else I believe I have found. Apple has also embedded some kind of facial recognition software. When I tried to upright and save all my pics in photo stream using windows native pic viewer, any inanimate objects such as scenery, a beer bottle, even crowds or people at a distance could easily be both uprighted and saved using windows native picture viewer. But when I try to upright and save a pic of a person , i can rotate the pic but when I try to save it the program just about crashes. I have two pics of the same two woman standing together. First shot at normal distance of about 15 feet could be rotated and saved. The next pic of the same women taken moments later, but zoomed in, could not be saved in the rotated position.

I've spoke with Apple on our issue and it's an ongoing ticket. I'm gathering info for him and will be calling back. He called me once asking me to test something so I know they are aware of it and want to fix it.

I had this same issue when sending email to a hotmail account. FYI - I'm running on an iPhone 4S with Photo Stream enabled. I ran a test taking 4 pictures at 90 degree increments and sending them from my Camera Roll Album to my hotmail account. Each one showed as a different rotation. Then I took those same four pictures and sent them from my Photo Stream Album to my hotmail account. All photos showed right side up!

I know it's a workaround and you must have Photo Stream on, but at least it doesn't require manually rotating the photos. You just have to remember to send them from your Photo Stream Album.

If anyone else gets a chance to try that, I'd be curious if it works. Good luck!

Here is how it went for me. This is hard to follow.

I did get that to work when emailing the pics from the photostream folder on my phone to my PC. Pics are received upright on my PC. So I tried emailing them from the photo stream folder on my pc as is, the way they arrive rotated from the cloud. When emailing them they are received still rotated if I view the email on my PC but they are fine if I view the same email on my phone. Which means my phone uprights the pic even when emailed from my PC while rotated.

Here's where it gets more interesting. The pic used for this experiement was of a chair.

I duplicated this experiment with a self portrait. Again testing my theory on Apple using face recognition software.

The experiment failed. Emailing from the photo share folder on my phone and viewing on my phone it is received upright just as before, But, that same email viewed on my PC, my self portrait is rotated. The facial recognition software used by Apple doesn't work well with PC. And, if I try to fix it the windows native pic viewer crashes. Apple doesn't want a PC to correct the pic rotation. So I used Faststone image viewer to rotate it and save it.

So what have we learned from this? I have no idea....except that the iPhone and a PC don't play nice in the sandox. There is a workaround by emailing from the phones photo stream folder as discovered, but NOT if that pic is a face shot.

The solution seems to always take pics in the widescreen mode with the home button to the right. That's kind of the way you would hold it as a real camera anyway. (but not for the front facing camera. home button to the left or the pic will be upside down! aaaaahhhhh)

Sorry Steve, it doesn't "just work"

I just figured this out. I emailed the video from my I phone 4 to myself to outlook on my PC. Before I opened the file, I right click and "save as" a Quick Time video. This allows me to open the video with the correct orientation on the PC. You can then upload to Facebook or other service with the proper orientation.

I was also frustrated by this issue when emailing photos to my gmail/hotmail/yahoo friends. So I developed an app that lets you email a photo so it will have the correct orientation when the person receives it on their email. Search for Rotate Mailer in the app store.
The problem started with iOS 4. Apple stopped saving images with the correct rotation (instead they just save the metadata with rotation instructions). Unfortunately, none of the web mail sites honor these instructions.
For video, your best choice is to just always take video in landscape with the 'volume buttons downward'. Then the video will never require rotation.

I happened into this topic for I am having the same issue. Still don't have a decent way to fix it but, at least, I think I found a reasonable explanation for this annoying problem.

I think those - like me - who have this problem have shot the videos on their iPhones while having the automatic screen rotation disabled (lock on the rotation icon when double-pressing the Home button). I gave it a try and actually shooting the video horizontally with that option locked makes the iPhone record it as if it was in Portrait Mode.

I hope I have explained myself, please forgive me if I have made some mistakes with my English. (:

Bye!

Same problem here. But this is just one example . . . the simple truth is that Apple is a cult, the products are NOT good, and they couldn't care less about the user experience. They just rush the **** out. They know it will sell whether it's **** or not. This really is a classic case of the emperor not having a shred of clothes. I'm as guilty as everyone else . . . this is the SECOND time I've purchased in iPhone. The first time, I quickly figured out it was crap and threw it off my balcony (safely of course). Then people convinced me they fixed all the bugs, so I bought another one . . . and it's still CRAP!

I too have this problem, it's not a case of the software that I'm opening them with coz my partner and 3 family members all have iPhone 4 and 4s and it's only mine that doesn't open in portrait mode, I can email it to one of the others and they can forward it off their phones and it will open portrait but if I do the same one it opens landscape. It's getting really frustrating now!

Apple should get this sorted ASAP!!

ok i shot a video yesterday at a concert and today i went to upload it to the bands facebook and it was sideways. i looked online and found this program called "movie rotator" its free. this was able to flip my .mov files. works very fast and perfect. BUT! when i upload the clip anywhere its still sideways! but when i play it either through quicktime or windows movie player or vlc whatever its fixed and not flipped. something embedded in the code that is still reading flipped when i uploaded onto other sites...

if anybody has any idea of this please let me know...

thanks!

got the program! thanks, but weird issue. when i drop the file into the program and play it, its not flipped! but its flipped in every other program... so i cant rotate it in this program...

i took the file i flipped in the other program i found movie rotator, and just use your program to change the file extention to mp4. this made the file look like it was shot in slow motion.

but since this file does appear to be normal when dropped in this player, i will try to keep it as an mov file and just save it to see if it keeps it that way.

i will update the progress.

Well, if re-saving it as .mov file doesn't work, try transcoding into any other codec - I recommend MP4 (which is h.264). That should definately solve the problem. Sounds like there is something really weird going on in the original movie file.

ok so i took the file that was flipped with another program and put it into the program you provided. so it showed the file in the right view already and i decided to make it an mp4 to over write any settings that might have been embedded in the file. by doing this it warped the video and made it look slow motion.

so i took the original file that was showing flipped, inserted that into the program you provided and it wasnt showing flipped anymore. so what all i did was say save as .mov which it was already. and that worked perfect.

uploaded that online and it shows perfect.

so thanks!