Video: Portrait Gallery in the Nokia N900

[Video at end of post]

You’re most likely aware that there’s no portrait mode in the N900 except during call/phone mode. You may also be aware that there’s a bug that induces somewhat a representation of portrait mode in the N900.

On Friday, “N900 spontaneously went into portrait mode. It looked nice. Dunno how to bring it back though.” – twitter @jaymontano

I tried for a bit to bring it back, found out how to confuse the N900 in other ways but not into the portrait mode I originally encountered.

This morning, just before getting ready to leave the house and go to a meeting – won’t be back till late this afternoon – I accidentally made the N900 go into portrait mode. Tried again and I was able to replicate going into portrait mode. Stay tuned, when I get back, I’ll show  you in video later just to confirm that it works and how to try it (if you wanted). (Seriously should have left the house by now)

UPDATE: After a restart, it has become impossible again to get the N900 to crash and induce the portrait bug.

Bug portrait isn’t exactly how I’d like to see the proper portrait view, app dependent, it cuts off much of the screen. But gallery mode doesn’t seem to suffer this and actually looks alright in portrait mode.

Here’s what it’s like by default. Note 5×3 icons.

Here’s the portrait. 5×9 icons. In reply to @rwishi – “Everything went portrait. Gallery looked good. All thumbnails in N900 shifted size to fit portrait. Otherstuff looked buggy.”

Also it doesn’t cut off icons to the right, it squashes all it down to fit in portrait mode.

And finally here’s a quick video to show the gallery in portrait:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agWtdATepe0]

Some people want portrait mode, others think it’s fine to keep the OS in landscape. There are plenty of reasons for either camp – (that might be worth a post in itself).

Whilst I’m really happy with the landscape Maemo 5 (and probably prefer to use it most in landscape), it would be nice to have the option for portrait to easy one-hand operation whilst maintaining a relatively firm grip of the N900. E.G. music player on the go.

Though I’d prefer to have landscape only than dodgy portrait – get portrait mode right first)

btw, if you’re interested, these photos have been uploaded in this post

http://mynokiablog.com/2009/12/02/nokia-n900-photo-samples-and-maemo5-camera-ui-london-part-2/

Tags: Maemo, Maemo 5, N900, Nokia, Portrait

Category: Maemo, Nokia, Nseries, Video