You don't get it.. I would very much appreciate landscape mode for many/most uses; movie, im, mail, etc...

But being forced to landscape mode for everything is not acceptable for me, and many many more.. I DEMAND that if I pay 6-700 EUR for a pda device it will support both portrait and landscape mode.

And don't patronize me by leading me towards the E71. I know what I want; a state of the art mobile pda device both hardware wize and software wize. - Thats why I am in this thread isn't it? - Do you think I would be making my points in here If I was looking for a symbinan device like the E71/E97 ?? -

I am just saying that if this device is pushed to the market to early without being finished, it will not be a success!!

I honestly think this device looks exceptionally nice, and that it has potential to be maybe THE device many people are looking for now to avoid the iphone epidemic.

BUT, as I have stated; taking into consideration that this device has only a fraction of applications available compared to other units (symbian/wmobile/iphone), and that you are forced to landscape mode only, you CAN NOT justify the asking price for this unit.

I belive people are looking for the ONE ultimate unit which they can use for both surfing/web/leisure, and phone/sms/mms/im etc..
People can't afford, and more importantly don't want to have one unit for surfing and one unit for phoning..

Bring me portrait mode in addition to landscape mode on the N900 and I will not only buy it, I will warmly recommend it on every forum to everyone I know. If not, I will leave you guys alone and go ahead and send my money to apple.

its not a deal braker for me altho i would like messaging in both orientations, but the past few years have seen alot of people come from crapy s40 devices and got themselvs a top end s60 device, n900 is one top spec device, people will want, it will bring s60 users to maemo, s40 users etc etc and not everyone will accept the landscape only orientation, yes thats up to the user but it will put people off the device, not everyone buys for top specs like cpu, ram etc, its just that alot of people will want it coz its new and looks nice.

on a side note i can see the n900 being a huge success due to all the hot talk about it all over the s60 forums, i reckon it will sell like the n95 did back in its glory days, theres not been so much heat about a device since the n95, so good luck to the maemo team, uv created a beast

Well, I also demand to be given a pony for that price, but I don't think I'll get that, even if I preorder.

Hollow threat. At least here.

..and I demand it sets coffee for me. But I'm the only one who wants that feature, so Nokia isn't going to invest in that.

Point is, they decided to not implement that portrait feature (at least not fully) to not delay the release of Nokia N900 and Fremantle. If certain features are in high demand I am sure Nokia will consider to add them! Either way that doesn't mean you'll have your candy tomorow though.

So, outline all the use cases for portrait mode which according to you are important. That is what this thread is about; qgil asked for feedback. This is your chance!

It was an example. The point was that sacrifices have to be made in hardware design, and that there is no "one size fits all". If you believe an Apple device is right for you, you buy that instead.

(FWIW, I don't see myself using an Apple device in one hand typing though.)

The point made before by several posters is that whether all applications are compatible with portrait mode or not is for most customers not a dealbreaker. iPhone 3G did not support landscape mode well either (was optimized for portrait mode), nor MMS. Were those dealbreakers? Difficult to say, but the device sold well.

There is however not one device by one manufacturer which is the perfect choice. Else we'd see that device having 100% market penetration.

It doesn't seem portrait mode is coming in the way you desire. Maybe you can weed the specific applications you want for portrait mode, and ask the developers to port it over. Maybe they want something back from you then, such as beta testing or money. IOW you will need to invest an amount of work to persue your goal, and crying about it here is not the way you'll get your things done.

So in short: it doesn't seem portrait mode is the primary usage of this device, and it doesn't seem it will be added soon. If it will be added you still have a hardware keyboard optimized for landscape mode. Do you really think you can be satisfied in the short term? I don't think so. You want a device primary developed for portrait mode, you want it now, and the N900 is simply not your piece of cake.

please ask nokia if they support rotated xv.
and if they don't right now, could you ask them to make sure it can do

This landscape-only stance is rather disappointing.

I fully agree regarding portrait mode. Often it's just far more comfortable or practical to hold the device in portrait mode. As stated numerous times, this is especially true if you only have one hand free.

I can see TONS of scenarios where it would be extremely useful to use the device with a single hand in a pinch.

1) Walking, holding my girlfriends hand while finding directions.
2) Holding a shopping basket at the market while looking up the next ingredient to purchase.
3) Recording myself banging my girlfriend after a great outing and satisfying meal.

Ok, cap, game face.....

Regardless of any of this: considering the potential for many future maemo devices (with varying screen dimensions, no doubt), the team would be well advised to consider that eventually this mode may need to be less a luxury and more a requirement and start planning accordingly.

In any event, I think the Maemo team should pay close attention to the market response given this landscape-only stance; especially considering it's a software problem.

YARR!
}:^)~

Of course! Paying attention to market response is one of the things Nokia does in order to improve its products. The company actually invests a lot on this, far beyond ragnar and me following this thread.

Actually defaulting to landscape mode covering it in all applications is also a result of paying attention to market feedback. We believe that the target audience of Maemo devices will welcome this design paradigm and will prefer it over the default portrait mode.

We are ready to hear the feedback from real N900 users based on their real usage of Maemo devices. Having a first hint based on specs, screenshots and your experiences with other devices is also useful but... You agree that the real analysis comes after using the real thing, first impressions and after a couple of weeks.

If she lose your hand she'll feel happy after you grab hers again once you got the directions right. Or if its of such vital importance she'll have the directions on her own phone next time.

Indeed, but Qgil asked for more use cases. To be frank I'm wondering about them as well.

I mean, what kind of situations?

Which applications and/or purposes? If its reading a lot of applications with which you can read (and/or write) fall into the class.

As of now its actually a lot like Nokia Communicator. Portrait mode for phone. Rest landscape.

Come on man, don't use guns...

@qgil,

I'm glad that nokia is listening. We're all rooting for your team, our community, and this wonderful device! So long as maemo keeps tending in a positive direction, it'll gradually get better and better and better still!

I don't know if you've heard this enough given all of the complaining in this (and similar forums), but great-job, man!


@allnameswereout,

LOL.. She's gotta have it!!

But no more beating this horse (even if there's life in'r yet). I'm sure there are many compelling reasons to use or not use the N900 in portrait or landscape mode. Time will reveal what we really want, what works for us and what doesn't.

YARR!
}:^)~

This thread shouldn't even exist.

There shouldn't be a question about supporting portrait mode in addition to landscape mode.

Community members created a portrait mode for the N8X0 tablets with a hacked kernel. As far as applications goes, that's on the individual developers. Including a rough portrait mode in the kernel officially (it could be hidden, but for the sake of stability) is a "duh" move.

The "well there isn't a portrait-mode keyboard", wrong. The stylus keyboard works great in portrait mode. Yes the finger keyboard doesn't. But I think we can take care of that, ok?

It's not even about reading the text, rotated 90 degrees. IM windows, web browsers, etc. allow for more content (less scrolling) on screen in portrait mode. Yes applications can do forced pseudo portrait mode, such as the calculator VTI.

As with an accelerometer on board this is no excuse.

Take the initiative team Nokia.

It doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to work.