Initial Interface Orientation to Landscape iOS 9

Question

Technical Note TN2244: Launching your iPhone Application in Landscape states:

The values of the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations key determine how the status bar is positioned while the the app is launching. In iOS 7 and below, if the UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait value is present, the status bar will always be positioned for portrait orientation. Otherwise, the status bar will be positioned according to the first orientation that appears under the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations key.

So in iOS 8 it was perfectly fine to put UIInterfaceOrientationLandscape first in the UISupportedInterfaceOrientations list to have your app to start in Landscape.

It does not work anymore in iOS 9. Having UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait in the list at any position forces app to start in Portrait.

Question

Is there a known workaround for this? I need my app to start in Landscape.

Note: Using viewControllers' supportedInterfaceOrientations() method is not an option as it takes effect after the LaunchScreen is presented.

Answer 1

Having UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait in the list at any position forces app to start in Portrait.

That is absolutely correct — very good detective work. It took me a lot of experimentation to figure this out! This is certainly a huge change from iOS 8. You have summed up the situation very well.

Fortunately, the workaround is simple. In your Info.plist, include only the two landscape orientations. Now the app will launch into whichever one is first.

Now implement application:supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow: in the app delegate to return All. That way, when the time comes to show a portrait view controller, it will be legal to do so.

In other words, think of the Info.plist as what the launching app needs to know, and application:supportedInterfaceOrientationsForWindow: as what the running app needs to know.