Orientation lock button > sound on/off button: An unwelcome change

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Orientation lock button > sound on/off button: An unwelcome change

Please, Apple, give us an Settings option to restore the orientation button setting! I need to lock/unlock orientation many times a day, and this change has just made my iPad about 20% less delightful!

The iPad has 4 hardware buttons (if you count the volume up/down as 1). You've now committed half of them to control of sound, and turned orientation lock from 1 hardware click to:

1) double-click Home button
2) target multitasking bar
3) 1 - swipes to reach iPod/orientation lock
4) target & tap orientation lock button
5) reorient ipad or wait for screen to reorient if already rotated
6) target & tap orientation lock button
7) home button

The thing that confuses me about this is that I was already in the habit of conveniently muting my iPad by holding down the volume down button for about 1 second. To make a orientation lock so cumbersome in exchange for a SECOND way to mute? Dedicating 2 of 4 (or 3 of 5, depending on how you count) my precious hardware buttons to sound control?

Please, we can have this both ways. If a lot of users prefer the new functionality (though that would surprise me), leave it on as the default, but allow us to set that button to be orientation lock again.

And please - SOON! My iPad has been a pure delight since I got it in March, and now I have something that I have to do frequently during the day that is cumbersome, made a little painful by the fact that you've taken away something that worked great, in exchange for something that's redundant.

Before:

17" PowerBook, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Nov 23, 2010 12:16 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 23, 2010 12:23 PM in response to ramatsu

I would have to agree! I rarely use the mute option, but used the screen orientation option a hundred times daily... Making it software based was just a bad move pure and simple! As already stated, the mute option it used before worked just fine... Having to double click, then scroll to get to the orientation option is just a pain, plain and simple!

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Answer 2

deggie

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167,195 points

Nov 23, 2010 12:27 PM in response to nyconsult410

No, the mute option didn't work just fine. If I'm watching a TV show and hold the volume button down for 1 second I can no longer here the TV show. Makes it much harder to watch. With the new system sound mute button I can now watch and listen and not be interrupted with push notification sounds.

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Answer 3

varjak paw

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170,206 points

Nov 23, 2010 12:27 PM in response to ramatsu

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

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Answer 4

Nov 23, 2010 12:39 PM in response to deggie

Muting notifications is a good feature, no one denies that. There are many settings that are important and useful.

The point here is, what setting do you need to access most frequent and thus should be accessible through the switch directly without having to go through the settings or a menu. The majority of people think the screen lock is. I have never in 3 month felt the need to turn off notifications only. But I used the screen lock several times a day.

But the real root of the problem is that Apple tells us how to use the iPad rather than giving us the option to configure it as we like it. Everyone has a different use. Having a button user configurable isn't such a revolutionary concept! Come on Apple.

And yes I did send them feedback. I hope many other will as well.

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Answer 5

Nov 23, 2010 12:48 PM in response to ramatsu

For goodness sake, why start another thread on this. There are already way to many of them. This is NOT new. We knew MONTHS ago that this change was coming.

And it is not going to change back. The switch was always meant to be a mute switch, just like on every other iOS device. They created a stop gap because they could not relase iOS 4 at the time they had to release the iPad. iOS 4 is what actually was supposed to add the orientation lock and it was always to do so with the app switcher bar. It was always meant to be a software based toggle.

Please, no more threads on this. It's done, it's changed, and it is now in line with the rest of the iOS platform.

I remember the Safari 4 tabs on top switch. It has been how long and we still don't have a user selectable option to use that UI...

Sorry for the terseness of this response, but this was well known in advance. It is well documented, and we don't need 450 threads on this.

I honestly wish they had released the iPad with that switch as a mute switch as it was intended from the begining. Then we would NOT have these threads.

Did it ever occur to you that there are those that actually like it this way now?

There are many times when I have needed to mute the notifications on the device, but I had to first enter my password to unlock the device, then and only then could I use the rocker switch to mute the entire device instead of just flipping the mute switch like I do on my iPhone.

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Answer 6

Nov 23, 2010 12:50 PM in response to ramatsu

Agree never use mute on I-pad , use lock constantly . Makes sense on phone not on pad

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Answer 7

deggie

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167,195 points

Nov 23, 2010 12:52 PM in response to David_o99

How do you know that the "majority" feels that way? The majority probably really doesn't care whatsoever either way.

I more frequently turned off push notifications to watch things on my iPad than I ever used the orientation lock, which I accessed may three times. So for me this was a change that was to my benefit.

Since the switch is probably changed through firmware having it user configurable would most likely mean having two different versions, say 4.2.1m and 4.2.1s and you select which one to download and install. This results in two different versions that have to be updated each time changes need to me made. Costly, inefficient, and leads to more coding errors. I could be wrong and maybe they will offer such an option, but considering this change has been discussed since the first beta I doubt that I am. If it was a simple software selectable fix I'm sure they would have used it.

I sent my feedback saying leave it as is. Or remove the switch in the next version (one less place for moisture to get in) and put the System Mute switch next to the Screen Orientation lock on the Apps Bar.

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Answer 8

Nov 23, 2010 1:34 PM in response to deggie

deggie wrote:
How do you know that the "majority" feels that way? The majority probably really doesn't care whatsoever either way.

Hm let me look, how about the vast amount of people here complaining about it? I see a lot of people expressing their dislike and I see a hand full of people posting over and over again how they think it's the best thing. Funny enough those are the very same people who have a history to defend anything that Apple does regardless of the subject.

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Answer 9

deggie

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167,195 points

Nov 23, 2010 1:47 PM in response to David_o99

This is a terrible place to decide whether the majority of people feel the way you do. If you notice a lot of the same people (us included) are posting multiple times. They've sold over 12 million iPads so the number of people posting here and elsewhere wanting it back is about .001% or so. As I said I think the vast majority of people just didn't know it was there hence the change doesn't affect them (what percentage of iPad users didn't read the manual?) or just aren't invested enough to care. And the percentage that own both an iPhone and an iPad (and I think this is a much higher number than people assume) already were used to this and don't have a problem with it.

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Answer 10

varjak paw

Level 10

170,206 points

Nov 23, 2010 1:51 PM in response to David_o99

Further argument here is pointless, so please let's let it drop at this point. If you want to express your displeasure to Apple about this change, use the feedback pages posted several times now. That's by far the best way to make your opinion known.

Regards.

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Answer 11

proven28

Level 1

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Nov 23, 2010 1:54 PM in response to deggie

deggie wrote:
How do you know that the "majority" feels that way? The majority probably really doesn't care whatsoever either way.

I more frequently turned off push notifications to watch things on my iPad than I ever used the orientation lock, which I accessed may three times. So for me this was a change that was to my benefit.

Since the switch is probably changed through firmware having it user configurable would most likely mean having two different versions, say 4.2.1m and 4.2.1s and you select which one to download and install. This results in two different versions that have to be updated each time changes need to me made. Costly, inefficient, and leads to more coding errors. I could be wrong and maybe they will offer such an option, but considering this change has been discussed since the first beta I doubt that I am. If it was a simple software selectable fix I'm sure they would have used it.

I sent my feedback saying leave it as is. Or remove the switch in the next version (one less place for moisture to get in) and put the System Mute switch next to the Screen Orientation lock on the Apps Bar.

My problem with the change is that while the "mute notifications" functionality certainly has great uses (watching movies, listening to music, etc), having it a software switch would have been a perfectly fine solution. You sit down to watch a movie, you double click, swipe, turn off notification volume.

The rotation lock makes much more sense as a quick hardware switch for those of us who use the iPad for document viewing/sharing on a regular basis, and having a multi-step software solution is extremely cumbersome. For example, you are examining/showing a document in portrait orientation, but page three is a chart in landscape. If you rotate the iPad the screen rotates so that the chart is still sideways to you. So you lock the screen and then rotate. Now when you get to the next page you need to unlock to go back to the portrait orientation that the document is in. Once you have to do that multiple times in one document it is very frustrating as the new software switch.

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Answer 12

proven28

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Nov 23, 2010 2:00 PM in response to deggie

deggie wrote:
And the percentage that own both an iPhone and an iPad (and I think this is a much higher number than people assume) already were used to this and don't have a problem with it.

That's quite an assumption considering everyone I know that has both uses their iPhone and iPad for very different purposes. The mute switch works great for the phone since I want to mute my ring/notifications quickly, yet on the iPad I use the orientation lock all the time.

@Dave Sawyer: Further discussion here isn't pointless, if more people discuss this on the forums then more people are likely to submit feedback and get something changed.

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Answer 13

ramatsu Author

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Nov 23, 2010 2:03 PM in response to deggie

That's a good point - I didn't realize that this was just notification mute, since the mute/unmute icon doesn't indicate that it's anything other than total mute. (Something like how the iPhone volume/mute overlay icon indicates headphones vs. built-in would be nice).

Alert notifications mute is a feature that's always been too buried, so at least there is some compelling reason for this change. I still fall into the camp that would much rather have the screen lock, but that's why a preference seems like the simple answer to solve it for most people.

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Answer 14

ramatsu Author

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Nov 23, 2010 2:35 PM in response to Richard Wessels

Richard Wessels wrote:
For goodness sake, why start another thread on this. There are already way to many of them. This is NOT new. We knew MONTHS ago that this change was coming.

I apologize for not finding the other threads before starting this one. I did a search, apparently way to hastily. And although I knew they planned this months ago, and voiced concern then, I had hoped they would include a Settings option in the final release. It seems that since they didn't, it's entirely appropriate to comment now as well.

Richard Wessels wrote:
Did it ever occur to you that there are those that actually like it this way now?

Yes. Which is why I suggested a Settings option. I'm at a loss to understand why you feel so strongly that those who don't like it this way should not have the option to change it, with no effect on your usage, though.

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Answer 15

Nov 23, 2010 2:52 PM in response to ramatsu

I am sorry, I am just getting really frustrated with the assumption that it should be switched back. Seeing the "petition" on Gizmodo, and people calling it a bug. Guess it just sort of got to me.

I have nothing against a user selectable option for almost anything. However, I also know how hard it is to support complex systems if every user can have a different set of options.

From the end user perspective, we want as much and as many options as we can get. From a support and development standpoint, you want a limited set of known variables so you know what the default / standard behavior should be.

I am dealing with this at work as well. User's where I worked had a free reign to do whatever they wanted. Now we are having to close the barn doors after the horses have already come home.

And the reactions are exactly as you would expect.

Guess I just appreciate Apple's position here and I am VERY glad to see standardization across the iOS based devices (Apple TV not withstanding of course).

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