playing around with this a little more. noticed some interesting things. for some application (i.e. H-A-M and Conversations) the device must be in portrait mode whilst launching the application for portrait mode to be invoked; also the application seems to be locked into portrait mode until exit, or keyboard is slid out; however then the application is locked in landscape mode. furthermore, if i launch an application in portrait mode, exit, then click on status menu, the the status menu loads in portrait mode, regardless of the devices orientation, and will continue to do so until another application is opened in landscape mode, or the keyboard is opened and closed whilst the device is in landscape mode. perhaps there is something funky going on in my device and this is an isolated case, or maybe this is the desired effect; but these results seem to be reproduce-able 100 per cent of the time. i'm not bothered by this, now that i figured out what is going on that is, i just thought i would bring it to your attention and share my finding with other users whom might be experiencing similar results. keep up the great work!