Iphone 4s Takes Pictures Upside-Down???

I'm pretty sure that is just one of trillions of glitches, as my own **** experience With faulty Apple equipment continues... if you try to get hep you'll be left very dissatisfied and frustrated and maybe 1-2 hours on hold at the help desk.

Ohhhh, maybe that's why they have these forums, so those that are denied support have a hope to get help here. I'm thinking you're never going to get anything but a headache. :( Apple doesn't care, why do they call it 'Apple Care?'

that has happened to me when I have the volume button on the top (in landscape mode), the pictures will appear on my photo stream upside down. I have no idea I usually just rotate them.

Since using the iPhone 4S the pictures I take from it appear fine on the phone but when I email them they appear upside down to the people and I send them to and on my home computer. This was never a problem on my iPhone 3GS so I want to stop anyone who is about to respond saying there is no issue. There clearly is something different and I can prove it. What ever Apple changed or added has made it to where picture orientation is incorrect when viewed on any device other then the phone. Does anyone know if Apple is addressing this issue or are they just ignoring it?

yeah i have the same problem.. windows 7 here.. i take the photos as you would do to a camera, the volume button is up just like all cameras. But the pictures are all upside down!

still a pretty bad bug, and also try to take videos.. and rotate them...

With the new feature of being able to take photos with the volume + button on the side of the phone, I think you are much more likely to take an "upside-down" picture. I think this feature was added in iOS 5. Since most people are right-handed, the old way to take pictures (with the touch screen button) would give most people a "right-way-up" image.

So if you use the new feature, you get an "upside-down" image!

The information is in the file to tell software that the image was taken upside down, but it's up to the software as to how it uses the information.

If you open the file in many programs, it won't rotate the image. This includes the Safari and Chrome browsers - I think they are wary about making the change because many websites might be badly affected if they suddenly started rotating the images.

For improved ease-of-use, they should change this so that it rotates the images so they display correctly in any program (or at least offer the option.to do so).

In the mean time, I'm going to find it very annoying.

It's a bad bug... When they demo iOS5 and show how to use the volume up button like a traditional camera shutter release, you'd expect everything to "just work" as Apple would say...

Some folks are trying to blame this on the way Windows handles pictures (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=13753154#post13753154) but it seems to me that Apple should have tested this common scenario - or they did test it but either couldn't do anything about it (or chose not to)...

Makes the Photo Stream "feature" almost useless.

It is not a bug in the iPhone, it is a bug in the viewing software and there have been several threads about this 'problem' in the last couple of years. The explanation is rather simple.

The EXIF metadata spec contains a field which defines how the image should be rotated for proper viewing, i.e. 'which side is up' 😀

Along about version 3.13 or so of iOS the software was changed to utilize that field of the EXIF spec--likely to facilitate faster photo saves from the camera. Prior to that time iOS devices with cameras physically rotated image data so that the rotation value field of the EXIF metadata could be set to zero. This allowed the images to display properly on those apps that were (and many still are) brain dead, i.e. they ignore the EXIF rotation field assuming it is zero, but that practice greatly increased the image to image time because rotating the image is CPU intensive and is better left to systems with fast CPUs.

So, the problem does not lie within the iPhone, it lies within the other apps that have so far failed to recognize and/or support the EXIF standard properly. Don't complain to Apple, complain to those companies with brain dead software--and there are quite a few still in the dark ages of image presentation. As a previous poster stated even Apple's own Safari doesn't handle it correctly (or at least it didn't earlier this year...I haven't checked lately).

I have suggested to Apple that they provide a switch to enable the old practice of rotating the image prior to saving but that has never happened. If set to ON one could be notified that image to image time would be increased and the user could then decide to use it or not. I suspect it wasn't added because the explanation of the function it provides could be confusing to non-technical users but I have nothing to support that suspicion.

It should also be noted that virtually all high end cameras set the rotation field, they do not rotate the image prior to saving.

Someone at Apple had the great idea to use the volume up button as a shutter. As they implemented the feature either they didn't test/notice how those photos or videos were being handled by other software ("upside down") or they did but decided to stay quiet about it. Have they posted any information about the issue? Don't you think everyone is running into the same thing?

You can choose to blame everyone else for not updating their software or you can push on Apple to do the right thing - as you suggested yourself. Give the user the option of rotating the image automatically on save. Whether or not it is technically Apple's problem, in reality it's Apple's problem to fix for their users.

Apple should've had a dedicated shutter button (so the orientation is right side up), if they want people to use this properly, for a machine like windows who has way more customers than mac customers. As it stands it is more natural for people to use the shutter key in the upside-down position.. and videos are another problem.. but knowning this problem i have in the interim using the volume up button on the bottom left so i don't have any issues.. its not as fun as using it the correct way... Also hopefully microsoft will support the EXIF tag ASAP

WOW - I THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY!

Thanks for the upside down photo posts. My work arounds have been to:

1. Go back to using the home button

2, Take photos with the volume buttons on the bottom

Either way, I'm sure this is not how the phone was intended to be used, so I hope Apple comes up with a fix.

I have this problem too but when I go to rotate them, they don't save. The files are not read-only and no other program is using them? Anyone familiar with this problem?

BEEZR wrote:

<...> Whether or not it is technically Apple's problem, in reality it's Apple's problem to fix for their users.

I tend to both agree and disagree with you here.

First the disagreement...as I said in my last sentence virtually all camera makers save images the same way Apple does--Apple was not the first, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, etc., all pioneered the use of the rotation field.

If I take a picture in the portrait format (camera rotated 90 deg CCW) with any of my Canon cameras (G12, t3i, 7D) and view the photo with Safari (which has never been updated to honor the rotation flag) the photos are all rotated 90 deg CW--not what one would want at all. Of course, the minute I touch the photo with Photoshop CS5 or Lightroom the image will be rotated by the program to set the rotation value to zero. This is exactly how a third party program should act. As all of my photos that are uploaded to third party sites are ran through either CS5 or LR (or both) the 'problem' never arises for me.

The problem lies with those who use their phone to upload directly to third party sites/apps and this brings us to where we do agree.

Apple has chosen to control the End-to-End experience for it's customers. They should be very much aware of this problem and how badly it impacts users of the iDevices with cameras. They should add the option or at least officially explain why they won't do so. Sure, this is a problem that will eventually go away as the third party apps slowly come into compliance with the EXIF spec, but in the interim Apple is doing a disservice, albeit a minor one, by not addressing the problem.

If you think Apple should provide the option you should let them know your thoughts at http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Here is the comment I gave Apple when I provided my feedback:

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I understand fully that the Apple software for the camera in iOS devices is 'proper'. I.e. the EXIF rotation flag is set to allow third party providers to display an image in it's proper orientation irregardless of which side of the iDevice was 'up' when the shutter was tripped. I also know that rotating the image before saving (as was done in versions of iOS prior to about 3.13) increases the image to image time.

However, many third party providers do not currently honor the rotation flag (even Safari, Apple's browser does not honor the flag when displaying images) and therefore images taken with an iDevice held in a rotated manner are shown improperly by said programs.

It would be a big help for many iDevice users if Apple were to provide a setting in the camera that would allow the old method to be chosen, i.e. the image is rotated prior to saving so that the rotation flag can be set to zero.

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This issue occurs on Windows 7 Photo Stream but not on Mac OS. I have both systems and just use my Mac. It occurs when you take a picture oriented with the volume button up. An update to Photo Stream for PC is coming to rectify this issue. In the meantime you will need to rotate appropriately.

-Kris