I dont know about anyone else, but I greatly prefer having the headphone jack in the upper right corner rather than the lower left corner when doing anything in landscape mode with headphones attached. Depending on how I'm holding it, either the edges of the phone, or the lower corners of the phone, fit against the top of my palm/first joint of my index finger, and with the headphone cord in the way I simply cannot find a comfortable way to hold the phone. With the jack situated in the upper right, I'm comfortable with my index finger either under the cord (for some games), or, cigarette-style, between my index and middle fingers. Is it just me and my big hands? Am I missing something? Seem to me that this could be solved by Apple by a default landscape preference setting for apps that dont use the accelerometer to determine the user's landscape preference. Thoughts? Mark
I've got an iPod Touch and much prefer the home button to be on the right for landscape mode games. As it has been said before, the best is to include an option to switch the screen. I have no problems if the game first comes up "upside down" but lets me change it and remembers it for next time - I've seen several games that do this (Car Jack Streets is the first one that comes to mind.)
on my ipod touch, I prefer the home button on the right for two reasons. 1. many games which I play in landscape have controls at the bottom. Whether it be a joypad or action buttons, most devs have controls off to the side at the bottom. With the chord at the top right for my ipod touch, nothing obstructs my chubby thumbs from reaching the buttons. 2. I am right handed, so when I rotate my phone back to the correct orientation, it is in my dominant hand. To rotate back I usually have my left hand rotate the device, pivoting on the bottom part of the device which rests against my right hand. It also makes it easier to hit the home button in case of emergency (ie: i accidentally bought a DS effects game).
Um...no. Holding both with the home button facing down (portrait mode), the iPhone headphone jack is in the upper left, while the iPod touch headphone jack is on the lower right hand side (near the home button). So when holding it in landscape, you've either got the iPhone's headphone jack on the lower left hand side with the iTouch jack on the upper right hand side, or, if oriented the other way, the iPhone's jack on the upper right hand side with the Touch's jack on the lower left hand side. BTW, solution to this issue: Screen flip orientation toggle in the option menu. Or auto detect screen flip, although that poses problems for some users when playing accelerometer controlled games (and to those people I offer this advice: slight movements of your device are needed...if your screen auto flips, then you're going too far with the tilt).
BTW, any game that doesn't come with a screen flip option is automatically a "don't buy" from me. And that includes, apparently, just about any Chillingo published game (iDracula, Orions, etc.). Chillingo has to get on the devs whose games they publish and tell them "we ain't publishing until that option is put in the game". iDracula is a great game. But I ain't playing it under that configuration. I've heard enough horror stories of bent headphone pins and jacks to leave me wary of repeating that with my iTouch.