Supporting only one orientation

Question

Hi,

I've an old app that I'm trying to update. I've had the update rejected for only being targeted at iPhones (the review board said all apps need to be usable on an iPad even if only for use on an iPhone). On an iPad screen some elements sit over each other.

I've been working to try and fix the UI for any size screen but to say IB in Xcode is buggy is an understatement. I thought I understood Stack Views but getting the them to work on my app seems nigh on impossible - it looks one way in Xcode and another on the simulator. So for now the app isn't functioning on later iOS'.

I'm thinking that restricting the UI to portrait view will greatly ease the transition and I have seen app's that only work in portrait or only landscape.

My question is: how did they get through submission? Is there a criteria for only supporting portrait or only supporting landscape? I've also had another app rejected for only working in one orientation.

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Posted by

todd_d

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Answer 1

There is no problem with an app that only supports one orientation.

The simplest way of running on iPad is making the app an iphone only app. Then it runs on the ipad in iPhone emulation mode.

Posted by

PBK

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Answer 2

There is no problem with an app that only supports one orientation.

The simplest way of running on iPad is making the app an iphone only app. Then it runs on the ipad in iPhone emulation mode.

Posted by

PBK

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Answer 3

Thanks, so I'm not sure why another app was rejected for only operating in one orientation but I'll disable rotation and submit.

Sorry: I'm not quite sure I understand the last two sentances. The reviewer wanted the app to run on an iPad even if it I had set the target device to iPhone and not Universal. Perhaps a small blip in the review process. Perhaps! 😉

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todd_d

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Answer 4

What that's the switch I meant was referring to....it can be set to "iPhone" not "Universal". If set to "iPhone" most apps work fine on an iPad. If set to universal then all **** breaks loose.

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PBK

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Answer 5

I should have specifically mentioned: I did have the switch set to 'iPhone' target. The reviewer tested on an iPad anyway and sent a screenshot to me of the issue on an iPad Air. When I appealed the review board said:

"We noticed that your app did not run at iPhone resolution when reviewed on iPad running iOS 11.0.3. Specifically, as we require all iPhone apps to be fully functional on iPad, we found that the last slider in the audio settings was covered by the bottom menu."

From then on I had enormous troubles with Stack Views not working as I intended in all orientations on all devices and IB just being next to useless for prototyping. I found that hand-made positioning and sizing code which I wrote to be far more useful but I didn't like what it did in landscape mode on an iPad - there are numerous settings that I wanted the user to easily get to so it was proving too much of a task to re-arrange for all screens considering what a small utility app this is. Supporting only portrait has significantly improved matters!

As I say, I've submitted with only portrait supported and hopefully it'll pass. It was good to hear from someone else that there shoudln't be an issue.

Thanks.

Posted by

todd_d

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Answer 6

I never figured out how to use the 'new' IB straps in xib. I almost always do it myself with object.frame=cgrectMake(....) and UIScreen.mainScreen.bounds.size.width.

One thing that works is to put everything in the xib into a 'containerView' and then move that containerView as the orientation changes.

The last two apps I built have been portrait only.

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PBK

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Supporting only one orientation

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