Feature request: orientation agnostic skins for iPhone

[Cheule]

Right now, as you well know, if you place the iPhone in portrait mode while a landscape skin is loaded, it simply squashes it to fit.  The converse is true of a portrait skin in landscape mode.

What I'd love to see is a skin that would load the appropriate landscape or portrait view depending on how the phone was held.  Pardon my bluntness, but having to go through a maze of menus and settings screens to switch to a "portrait" or "landscape" skin to get it to display properly is poor design.

Please don't feel that I'm bashing your product, because I really like it. However having to manually change skins instead of just rotating orientation and the app sensing the change is not something I'd expect from a $50 app.

[John@PPE]

You can set the screen orientation in the Settings. Does this not accomplish your goal? I think this was added in 2.9.4 though. Are you still on 2.9.3?

We don't have a way for the dashboard to auto-rotate. This would put an extra burden on the dashboard creator, and most of our dashboards are user-created, rather than profesionally designed.

Such a feature would be similar to creating an iPhone app, where it is up to the app creator to ensure that every screen looks good in portrait and landscape. As an iPhone programmer, I can attest that this causes many headaches.

[Cheule]

Actually, no, going through settings menus to lock or unlock iPhone rotation does not accomplish what I'm talking about.

Again, no disrespect intended, please do not imply any, however...

I can't think of another app on the iPhone (where multiple orientations are supported) that requires you to go through menus to load the best skin for that orientation. If I turn the phone, the screen reformats automatically.

I do realize the issues involved, I.e. people would have to develop multiple graphics to support this (although let's be honest, this wouldn't have to be mandatory, it can be set up as a "use the skin if present, otherwise squash/stretch the current one").

So yes, it would mean more work.. But it's work nearly all iPhone app developers go through to remove the kludge were presented it's here...

Instead of simply rotating the phone and letting the app choose the best layout, we:

1) rotate phone to different orientation
2) tap screen,
3) tap main menu button,
4) swipe to get to next menu,
5) tap settings,
6) scroll to dashboards,
7) tap current dash name,
select new skin,
9) tap settings,
10) tap menu,
11) Swipe left,
12) Tap dashboards.

That is a crazy amount of steps, and very in-iPhone-ish IMO.

[Cheule]

Version 2.9.3 is what the app store sent me when I purchased it Sunday.  I see no updates available.

[Cheule]

You know, a less than ideal way to handle this, but would still be better than the current set up, would be to be able to set two different dash skins, one for each orientation. That way if I rotate landscape it loads Tuxedo Mobile Landscape, and then if I rotate portrait, it loads the portrait version (just for example).

[John@PPE]

Oops. My mistake. 2.9.3 is the latest.

Let me put this on our internal list of feature requests and see what we can come up with.

But also let me ask how you are using this? Why are you rotating the orientation?

[Cheule]

My phone doesn't have a specific clip or location in my car, I sometimes set it above my steering wheel, sometimes in my cup holder, and sometimes hold it in my hand if I'm going through menus.  So I change orientations frequently.

Sometimes I set it down in landscape, but the pick it up to operate it one handed in portrait.

Does that make sense?

[John@PPE]

Yeah. That makes sense. Thanks. I'll put it on our list.

[Cheule]

I appreciate it!

[zra]

Instead of simply rotating the phone and letting the app choose the best layout, we:

1) rotate phone to different orientation
2) tap screen,
3) tap main menu button,
4) swipe to get to next menu,
5) tap settings,
6) scroll to dashboards,
7) tap current dash name,
select new skin,
9) tap settings,
10) tap menu,
11) Swipe left,
12) Tap dashboards.

That is a crazy amount of steps, and very Un-iPhone-ish IMO.

I totally agree, the amount of going back and forth required to switch skins, screens and parameters is totally unreasonable for an app that is intended for use while a car is in motion. How about in addition to skins that auto-orient, the ability to set up an auto rotate for screens like switch between performance and MPG every X secs. And the ability to change which skin you want on the fly? And A skin that lets you choose what parameter goes on which gauge without having to go buy a PC and learn a new program? This is a $50.00 app which requires $600.00 worth of hardware to make actual use of.