Lock Your iPhone’s Screen In Landscape Orientation With tsLock O
It has always bugged me that the iOS orientation lock is not smart enough to detect your device’s current orientation, and locks the screen only in portrait mode. Admittedly, most of the times you need your iPhone screen to stay vertical, specially when you are lying down, but there are some occasions when you might want to keep the screen in landscape mode, for instance when watching a video in a player that supports both orientations, web browsing, or even reading an eBook in some situations. tsLock O is a new Cydia tweak that brings this much0needed functionality to jailbroken iOS devices. The tweak simply endows the orientation lock toggle with the ability to lock your device orientation in the whatever mode is active when you press the button. You won’t lose the default portrait lock, as the new addition is really unobtrusive and comes into action only when you need it.
The developer behind tsLock O seems to have made the tweak with the intention of keeping it as simple as possible. There is no new icon or menu added to the device by the tweak, and you won’t even notice any difference after installing it, until you choose to lock the device orientation while it is in landscape mode. This simplicity also means that new users might get a little confused regarding the tweak’s usage. For those of you who need a bit more explanation, there is no direct way of locking the orientation to landscape while the device is in portrait mode, and here is what you’ll need to do to achieve this.
Launch any app that supports landscape mode. The stock Photos app, Messages, iBooks or even a third-party app with landscape mode works. Once in the app, tilt your phone horizontally, and bring up the App Switcher tray to tap the orientation lock toggle from there. If you have configured the hardware button to control the orientation, or are using SBSettings, those methods can be used too. When you lock the orientation, the only visible change made by tsLock O can be seen on the screen itself, in form of a ‘Landscape Orientation Locked’ message just below the lock toggle. The good thing about this method is that the lock works universally, and any app that you launch afterwards shows up in landscape mode, as long as it supports it.
To use the toggle in its normal fashion i.e. to lock the device orientation in portrait mode, simply turn the toggle on while on the Home screen, or in an app in portrait mode.
tsLock O is a free tweak, and can be downloaded from the BigBoss repo in Cydia Store.
