Q: iPhone SE: home screen rotation doesn't work

Hi Barry,

and thank you for your superquick answer   even if you're telling me that I'm doomed to hate this phone from the very beginning

Anyway (still hoping that someone will come up with some kind of workaround later) I'd like to share a couple of considerations with you (as your "Level 8" means that you know something about these matters):

1) if this impossibility of rotating the home screen (and app store, and itunes store etc.) to landscape is really "built in" in some models (SE) and not in others (6S) with similar hardware/specs, it should be a software block and not a hardware limit, am I right? But if it is a software block, how is it possible that the same OS allows home screen rotation on one model and not on another? And let's reverse it: if the OS is the same for all phones, it should theoretically be possible to eliminate this block with a patch/string/whatever, am I right?

2) if you develop a phone with 4" screen plus frame, without a "back" button near the "home button" on the inferior side of the frame, and you provide it with an OS that stacks icons from top to bottom and has "back" commands in every page appearing in the top left corner, how the h**l do you think a normal right handed person can use it in portrait mode with one hand??? I mean, I'm not a 5ft girl with tiny hands, I'm a 6ft guy and still can't manage to reach that top left corner with my thumb without dropping the phone on the floor in the process. I mean, come on, this is not the first iteration of this phone...

Hi KiltedTim,

I appreciate your honesty...you made me laugh I know what you mean, and in a way you're not wrong, but the thing is I bought this phone because it is the only one with an acceptable size (4") that does not run Android (I hate Android) or other pathetic OSs (don't need to name it, do I? ). That's why I migrated from BlackBerry (Curve 9380 touch, perfect size, 150$, did everything I needed out of the box and never let me down) to the new iPhone SE...knowing that I would encounter some issues but, in a way, I had (and have) no other choice. Take care

Hi mreg,

I know what you are thinking but it's not entirely true I own 7 Macs (from the "old" Powerbook G4 to the newest iMac) and they've always been absolutely perfect (if we try to forget for one moment what happened after Snow Leopard, at least). So I'm not at all new to the Apple operating systems, and that's the core of the problem: Apple OSs have never been particularly flexible as far as modifications are concerned (Linux anyone?), but fact is they were incredibly well-conceived, setup for daily workflow was simple, and they were reliable in the broadest sense of the term (no nonsense features, no absurd limitations, no problems, no hassles, everything could be done with a couple of commands, and so on). I never bought an iPhone because the iPhone, since its first iteration, has always been the opposite (I had the choice when the first model was available only in the US, and I chose to go BlackBerry for some very good reasons): it was bad as a phone (and everyone acknowledged this), it had battery issues, you had to pay for basic apps (while BlackBerry had OfficeToGo built in, to read and modify word, pdf, excel and powerpoint files), it was very expensive and (at least here in Italy) the tariff plans (which were indivisible from the iPhone) were a bloodbath. That's why, despite being a Mac user for more than twelve years, I bought the BlackBerry instead of the iPhone, and never regretted my choice for one second. And now that I'm forced to change (BlackBerry makes only big 6-7" phones now, and has started to use Android, which I hate, as OS) I experience the difference that I knew there was:

1) I have a phone that imported the entire list of my contacts only with iTunes 12.3 which, by the way, cannot be installed on Macs running Snow Leopard (the ones I use to work); I was lucky to have two new Macs that I bought last year for my private practice: if I hadn't them, I should have copied my contacts (350+) by hand (maybe it's just me not trusting Cloud systems). And this confirms the direction that Apple has taken in recent years regarding compatibility: needless to say that, to me, this is ridiculous.

2) as I already wrote, if you develop a phone with 4" screen plus frame, without a "back" button near the "home button" on the inferior side of the frame, and you provide it with an OS that stacks icons from top to bottom and has "back" commands in every page appearing in the top left corner, how the h**l do you think a normal right handed person can use it in portrait mode with one hand??? I mean, I'm not a 5ft girl with tiny hands, I'm a 6ft guy and still can't manage to reach that top left corner with my thumb without dropping the phone on the floor in the process. And this is not the first iteration of this phone...which makes it absolutely unacceptable from Apple.

3) you (Apple) decide that people do not need to use landscape view on the home screen pages (and appstore, and itunes store) with iPhones that have a 4" display: are you joking? And how am I supposed to navigate with one hand in portrait view through the menus (see point 2)?? Was it really so difficult to give us the possibility of locking the view for everything (and this is given) but also to unlock it for everything (home screen included)?? Here we're not talking about hardware choices (that imply costs and everything), here we're talking about a certain kind of mentality that's been lost...and you can feel it. If this iPhone was sent back in time 10-15-20 years without the brand on it, not a single Apple customer would believe it was made by Apple. It has tens of useless (some even plain incomprehensible) options to navigate in the settings page, but you cannot use it with one hand nor you can turn it to use it with two...ah, well, wait, that is just for the home screen, with apps and messages and safari you magically can...so landscape view is now useful...or not?!? Come on....

That's it: you see, I'm not new to Apple operating systems, I just feel that the mentality they've demonstrated in recent years is only good to make them earn more money, not to make things better anymore. Take care