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Apple Patents Portrait-Landscape Flipping
theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted a patent to Apple for Portrait-landscape rotation heuristics for a portable multifunction device (USPTO), which covers 'displaying information on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers.' Perhaps the USPTO Examiners didn't get a chance to review the circa-1991 Computer Chronicles video of the Radius Pivot monitor before deeming Apple's invention patentable. Or check out the winning touchArcade trivia contest entry, which noted the circa-1982 Corvus Concept sported a 15-inch, high-resolution, bit-mapped display screen that also flipped between portrait and landscape views when rotated, like our friend the iPhone. Hey, everything old is new again, right?"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Looks like the AC above you has prior art.
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I may be reading the patent wrong, but it sounds like it's not about changing orientation only from accelerometer input, but rather changing it according to the gesture, and then locking that change (i.e. preventing further accelerometer-triggered changes) until the device is positioned such that the locked orientation corresponds to natural orientation.
If I understand correctly, what it means is this. Suppose I'm sitting and holding an iPad in portrait mode, surfing the web. I then want to lie down on the side and read a book from it. When I put the iPad down on the side, the orientation will change to landscape, which isn't what I want, so I use the touch gesture (holding the corners and rotating?) to rotate it back into portrait. Now it's locked in that orientation, and I can read it for however long I want. But when I stand up and pick up the device, its locked orientation now matches its physical one, and so it auto-unlocks - so if I rotate it after standing up, it will change orientation automatically again (which is what I want).
Can you name a product that used them together the way the iPhone and iPad do? If not, then, apparently, it's not sufficiently obvious to all the other consumer gadget makers out there otherwise somebody else would have done it.
Nokia N95. 3-axis accelerometer used to orient screen. 2006.