PSA: Restrict orientation lock behavior to android phones
Frank Liberato
Contact Email
Specification
Chrome Status Entry
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5144443101118464
Summary
Android tablets can and sometimes do lie about handling an application’s request to lock orientation. For example, in response to an application request to lock the orientation to landscape while in portrait mode, the tablet might report success after (a) doing nothing, (b) letterboxing while remaining in portrait, or (c) correctly rotating the display. This makes the behavior of the ScreenOrientation::lock() API on tablets hard for sites to rely on; a successfully resolved Promise doesn’t always mean what the spec says it means.
Further, these behaviors are becoming more common among tablets. We expect this trend to continue.
To address this, we plan to make ScreenOrientation::lock() for all non-phone form-factors reject the resulting Promise with a `NotSupportedError` without attempting to lock orientation.
Foldables will behave according to Chrome’s belief about the current device shape, though Chrome’s detection of this continues to be somewhat flaky. Other form-factors, e.g. “automotive”, don’t really make sense with this API anyway.
Blink Components
Blink>ScreenOrientation
Tracking Bug
https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4383592
https://b.corp.google.com/issues/384736274
Estimated Milestone
M136
Mike Taylor
On 2/28/25 12:31 PM, 'Frank Liberato' via blink-dev wrote:
Contact Email
Specification
Chrome Status Entry
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5144443101118464
Summary
Android tablets can and sometimes do lie about handling an application’s request to lock orientation. For example, in response to an application request to lock the orientation to landscape while in portrait mode, the tablet might report success after (a) doing nothing, (b) letterboxing while remaining in portrait, or (c) correctly rotating the display. This makes the behavior of the ScreenOrientation::lock() API on tablets hard for sites to rely on; a successfully resolved Promise doesn’t always mean what the spec says it means.
Further, these behaviors are becoming more common among tablets. We expect this trend to continue.
To address this, we plan to make ScreenOrientation::lock() for all non-phone form-factors reject the resulting Promise with a `NotSupportedError` without attempting to lock orientation.
Foldables will behave according to Chrome’s belief about the current device shape, though Chrome’s detection of this continues to be somewhat flaky. Other form-factors, e.g. “automotive”, don’t really make sense with this API anyway.
Blink Components
Blink>ScreenOrientation
Tracking Bug
https://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4383592
https://b.corp.google.com/issues/384736274
Estimated Milestone M136 --
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