Iphone 4s Takes Pictures Upside-Down???

Apple advertises the new advanced camera on the 4S and if you check the TV ads you can clearly see that they are holding the phone with the volume button up and they click that button to take th picture. By holding the phone that way the pictures (and of course VIDEOS) are recorder upside down and even worse the camera lens are usually covered by your finger because THEY ARE LOCATED AT THE WRONG SIDE OF THE PHONE!!!

If apple wanted us to take photos and videos with the volume button (which is correct) then they should have placed the camera lens at the other corner of the phone and they should have rotated the lens so the default was to take the picturres AND VIDEOS the correct side up!!!

I can't believe that!!! This is a big failure here Apple...

Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way the iOS devices take and store images. You can complain that you don't like how Apple does it all you want, but it does not change the fact that Apple does it in the most modern way. As to Windows, when has Windows ever been accused of being modern?

I am curious, though, just what Apple supplied apps on the Mac did the Genius Bar use to display the photos that displayed them upside down? All of the Apple supplied apps, with the sole exception of directly displaying an image file using Safari, all rotate the image for you. If you have concrete examples of the apps I'd really like to know for then I could report the bug to Apple as I have with Safari.

crh24 wrote:

Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way the iOS devices take and store images. You can complain that you don't like how Apple does it all you want, but it does not change the fact that Apple does it in the most modern way. As to Windows, when has Windows ever been accused of being modern?

I am curious, though, just what Apple supplied apps on the Mac did the Genius Bar use to display the photos that displayed them upside down? All of the Apple supplied apps, with the sole exception of directly displaying an image file using Safari, all rotate the image for you. If you have concrete examples of the apps I'd really like to know for then I could report the bug to Apple as I have with Safari.

Also, indirectly using an image file in Safari with the <img> tag doesn't work.

And they will never fix that because if they suddenly changed it, they would break many websites.

The point is that JPEG files never used to have EXIF data - it has become popular to put in EXIF data, but it's not always used. Windows ignores it, Apple uses it, Web browsers ignore it (though you might get a fix for the direct case in the near future as there is a bug open in WebKit).

If I introduced a new EXIF (or other) field into a JPEG file that changes fundamentally the way that it is interpreted, I couldn't expect everybody to adopt it.

The JFIF spec says "In JFIF files, the image orientation is always top-down. This means that the first image samples encoded in a JFIF file are located in the upper left hand corner of the image....".

So in my opinion, the most compatible way is to...

a) generate a JPEG file that is the "right way up" in the first place (especially when you've provided a camera that incites you to take the picture with the sensor upside down). In fact all cameras should really do it for all rotations (or at least give you the option), so EXIF data is never needed to correct the rotation (additional EXIF fields might be necessary to indicate the orientation of the sensor prior to converting).

b) Windows and web browsers/standards (in a backward compatible way) should implement the EXIF rotation to provide compatibility.

karasardelis wrote:

Apple advertises the new advanced camera on the 4S and if you check the TV ads you can clearly see that they are holding the phone with the volume button up and they click that button to take th picture. By holding the phone that way the pictures (and of course VIDEOS) are recorder upside down and even worse the camera lens are usually covered by your finger because THEY ARE LOCATED AT THE WRONG SIDE OF THE PHONE!!!

If apple wanted us to take photos and videos with the volume button (which is correct) then they should have placed the camera lens at the other corner of the phone and they should have rotated the lens so the default was to take the picturres AND VIDEOS the correct side up!!!

I can't believe that!!! This is a big failure here Apple...

Could not agree more with you. Wrote a long answer to crh24 which apparently Apple chose to delete because it was critical of Apple. To answer his question -- Genius Bar folks used a Mac with Windows installed.

Apple OS use is still about 5% of the world market. (Other World Computing -- Nov 21, 2011). We can argue all day about the exact percentage, but the fact remains that Apple OS (although probably the fastest growing) is a small percentage of the world market. The Apple community apparently believes the rest of the world should suddenly change to adapt to Apple's whim. Social networks, web browsers, and other OS have to be changed.

The 4s and Apple Support has been a disappointing experience on several matters (with a few exceptions). crh24 knows far more than the people working Apple support. I like my Mac and iPad, but am very happy I also have a Windows 7 machine.

It all comes down to a simple concept, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) !

If I send it and it is right-side up,

then it should be received right-side up !

The same email was received on the iphone and it translated it to be right-side up

So, I will say it again, why can't the image be translated to be right-side up before it is sent?

Very simple concept. I don't know why it takes 5 pages of discussion to get the point across.

When you take a picture or video and send it to Grand-Ma & Grand-Dad, they shouldn’t need a masters degree in computer science to view it on their PC. Sorry, but not all of us have a MAC or maybe even the latest and greatest software on their PC.

This is awful!

Whatever the arguments about it being a bug or it marking the rotation in the header or whatever, an average user would expect to see the picture the same way up as it looked in their viewfinder. The picture of the camera on the on-screen start/stop button even rotates, so it suggests that you are always holding the camera the correct way around! The onscreen (or in-viewfinder) info wouldn't rotate around on a normal camera.

But the big issue is VIDEO. Yes, there are 101 ways of rotating a photo after the fact, but not video! If anyone knows of one, please tell me. It's reasonably common for people to hold the phone in portrait and record a video, then realise their mistake when they view it on a computer... but as people have said already, logically you would hold the camera in landscape with the start / stop button on the top. Which results in, in my case, an entire school nativity being upside down which is unforgivable of Apple.

Someone already said they even hold the phone that way up on their adverts. What on earth were they thinking? They've had plenty of opportunity to release a bug fix (or a new feature if you don't want to call it a bug), to set which way up you want the camera... Or put a big flashing message on the screen saying UPSIDE DOWN or something. Or just correct it, as they do with their on-screen buttons and info.

I've been let down 3 times now by the iPhone... BOTH times the alarm clock failed and now a nativity - which is a memory lost forever.

Apple need to be more responsible.

(and I need to remember my video camera next time!)

Any good movie editing software should allow you to rotate the full video. I've use MS Mover Maker on Win 7 and it did a fine job. Just do a YouTube search for "CPAP Fire Starter" to see.

Actually I just found "Free Video Flip and Rotate" which looked fairly useful (and free!). But the quality is attricious after conversion. Do you know of any lossless way to rotate them, or is that not technically possible?

I'll give the ones a go that you suggest about though - they can't do a worse job than the one I found ;-)

Chris

i was shocked when i saw my all pics and videos inverted upside-down , because i like to catch horizantal or landscape pics. this is not acceptable. they should make updetes for this. very disapointing......

even you take vertical pic than again comes right-inverted and cant be rotate in windows. cant sleep al night when i found this.... apple fix thisssssssssssssssssssssssss

It also happens to me, it's really annoying when you take a video, because is really not easy rotating it.

As crh24 has told before, I have posted a Bug Feedback on: http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html.

I hope that if we all post this kind of feedback, Apple will try to fix this bug.

¡Merry Christmas!

crh24 wrote:

I guess it is time to repost this as it is clear that many are not reading all previous posts in this thread before pontificating on the subject....

No need to repost because it's you that's not getting it. Read on and I'll explain why...

crh24 wrote:

Perhaps because it is not a bug. I've owned a dozen high level cameras costing from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand. NONE of them rotated the image ALL of them set the EXIF flag. Are you saying that Apple, Nikon, Canon, etc. have all done it wrong and should modify their software to fit comfortably in the 1990s?

Let me ask you a few questions:

1. Did all of your 'dozen high level cameras' when held in their upright positions have the shutter button on the top (most likely on the right side)?

2. Did all your 'dozen high level cameras' when held in their upright positions take right side up (ie, NOT upside down) photo's?

3. By Apple announcing that you can now use the volume button as a shutter button, (perhaps without any thought) have now made the iphone, when held in that position, it's upright position?

If you answered yes to the above, then EXIF doesn't matter and therefore it's a BUG!! Any camera that takes upside down photos in it's default/upright position HAS A BUG!!

sgflyr wrote:

Just came from the Apple Store (Genius Bar) They were unaware of the problem until shown the many pages of this forum.

After reading Steves Bio, all I can say is, if he were alive, it would be fixed by now. This is the sort of thing he would have gone haywire over, esspecially as they're advertising holding the phone with the volume button on the top right.

Well put mfarqwa!

Hopefully now the "Genius" knows of the problem, it will be fixed promptly. I won't hold my breath. Maybe I'll set an alarm to check the forum on 1st January. Oh, hold on ;-)

I noticed sometimes when you take a photo where it uses the flash, sometimes the first picture becomes very foggy, then the next I take looks better. But I think the best result will be with the +/- buttons at the top.

I know they will be upside down then, but I managed to rotate and save them in windows, it's funny the other day I could only rotate them not save them, it would always come up with an error about wrong file format or something, but then today it suddenly let me save them after they were rotated 🙂

I use Windows 7.