iOS 10 Landscape Rotation Lock Bug

I encounter this periodically whenever I’m laying in bed with my iPhone at an angle, but I could never nail down exactly why the home screen kept reverting to landscape orientation. What adds to the frustration is that a mechanism like rotation lock always seems to sneak in an annoying bug into each major iOS release. Whether this bug was introduced with iOS 10 or was already present, I figured out the steps necessary to reproduce it.

It appears that this bug has been fixed as of iOS 10.2. Developer Relations reached out to confirm that the behavior is gone and the Radar I filed is now marked as closed. If you’re still experiencing this issue, try updating to the latest version of iOS.

Step 1

Open an app that supports landscape orientation. When it’s in landscape orientation, lock the screen.

Step 2

While the iPhone is still in landscape orientation, unlock the screen.

Step 3

While still in the app from Step 1, swipe up for Control Center and enable Rotation Lock.

Step 4

Press the Home button to exit to the home screen, swipe between screens, and the orientation should snap back to landscape erroneously.

Or if you prefer video of the bug in action:

I also filed a Radar (28604232) for this bug, so hopefully it doesn’t fall down a black hole. Leave a comment if you have any ideas on how to fix it or why simple things like this seemingly never make it into any regression testing.

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