iPad doesn't trigger resize event going from vertical to horizontal?

Question

Has anyone noticed this behavior? I'm trying to write a script that will trigger upon a resize. It works fine on normal browsers, works fine on iPhone, but on iPad, will only trigger going from horizontal to vertical viewport, not vice versa.

Here's the code:

$(window).resize( function() {

    var agent=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
    var is_iphone = ((agent.indexOf('iphone') != -1));
    var is_ipad = ((agent.indexOf('ipad') != -1));

    if(is_iphone || is_ipad){
        location.reload(true);
    } else {     
        /* Do stuff. */
    };
});

Solution 1

If I understood you correctly, you want to do something when the user tilts the iPad. Here you go:

window.onorientationchange = function(){

    var orientation = window.orientation;

    // Look at the value of window.orientation:

    if (orientation === 0){

        // iPad is in Portrait mode.

    }

    else if (orientation === 90){

        // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the left.

    }


    else if (orientation === -90){

        // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the right.

    }

}

Solution 2

I think what you want would be to use the iPad Orientation CSS, which looks like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:portrait)" href="portrait.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all and (orientation:landscape)" href="landscape.css" />

Also, the orientationchange event fires when the orientation is changed, according to iPad web development tips.

Together, that should give you tools enough to deal with the change.

Solution 3

This includes all orientations.

Here are two options:

window.onorientationchange = function() {

    var orientation = window.orientation;

    // Look at the value of window.orientation:

    if (orientation === 0) {
    // iPad is in Portrait mode.

    } else if (orientation === 90) {
     // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the left.

    } else if (orientation === -90) {
     // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the right.

    } else if (orientation === 180) {
    // Upside down portrait.

    }
}    

or

// Checks to see if the platform is strictly equal to iPad:
    if(navigator.platform === 'iPad') {
            window.onorientationchange = function() {

            var orientation = window.orientation;

            // Look at the value of window.orientation:

            if (orientation === 0) {
            // iPad is in Portrait mode.

            } else if (orientation === 90) {
             // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the left.

            } else if (orientation === -90) {
             // iPad is in Landscape mode. The screen is turned to the right.

            } else if (orientation === 180) {
            // Upside down portrait.

            }
          }       
        }

Solution 4

You want this fix for the orientation bug on iphone and ipad. read about it here: http://www.blog.highub.com/mobile-2/a-fix-for-iphone-viewport-scale-bug/

github newest version here: https://gist.github.com/901295 use the second version on the page.

Solution 5

The only thing I could find from apple:

Safari on iPad and Safari on iPhone do not have resizable windows. In Safari on iPhone and iPad, the window size is set to the size of the screen (minus Safari user interface controls), and cannot be changed by the user. To move around a webpage, the user changes the zoom level and position of the viewport as they double tap or pinch to zoom in or out, or by touching and dragging to pan the page. As a user changes the zoom level and position of the viewport they are doing so within a viewable content area of fixed size (that is, the window). This means that webpage elements that have their position "fixed" to the viewport can end up outside the viewable content area, offscreen.

I understand the "works on the iPhone" part...but maybe it doesn't anymore? This could be a change in OS/mobile Safari since the latest public iPhone OS release shipped (the above documentation is from March 2010).

I'm going to re-tag this question adding iPhone to it, maybe one of the guys with the developer 4.0 OS release can test this? If it is the case it's been removed, this should be a bug filed/fixed before it goes live...I'm not sure on how the procedures are on this with Apple are though.

View more solutions

Comments

[dclowd9901]

Thanks for looking it up and adding the tag. To compound my confusion, I'm no Javascript zen master, so I wasn't even sure if I was putting the code together correctly.

[Nick Craver]

@dclowd9901 - The code looks alright, just an extra ; after the if there :) Just curious, why do you need to reload when the page resizes?

[dclowd9901]

I have functionality in a slideshow plugin that I wrote that gives it fullscreen viewing with a parameter. Users brought it to my attention that lack of accommodating window resizes was an oversight. I tried to write a bandaid before I release a new tested version, but came across the issue about which I posted.

[dclowd9901]

I can't test this yet, but this is probably exactly what I'm looking for. Great general resource for general iPad development too. Thanks in advance artlung! I'm looking forward to trying this out!

[artlung]

Cool! Hope it's helpful. I have a friend who just got one and am eager to play with it.

[dclowd9901]

This doesn't seem to be working. The safari browser doesn't seem to recognize the orientationchange property.

[artlung]

I don't have an iPad or iPhone to test with. Is that where you're testing?

[dclowd9901]

I should mention the browser built in debug outright says "window.orientationchange" is not a function.

[kennytm]

@dclowd: window.**on**orientationchange.

[dclowd9901]

@KennyTM: Looks like we have a winner. Put it up as an answer, and collect your prize ;)

[dclowd9901]

I chose your answer because it was most concisely the correct answer. As a point of notation, though, the solution I went with incorporated none of the if checking. It simply ran code (namely a page reload) when the orientation was changed.

[Vincent]

@dclowd9901 Yes, I thought so, I just wanted to provide some extra information :)

[user3167101]

I think it'd be better to check for window.orientation then explicitly check for the device in most situations.

[Alexandre Khoury]

You forgot when orientation === 180. It's when the iPad is turned upside-down.

[Gabbax0r]

7 years later and this answer still rescues me. thanks a lot.

[Vincent]

@Gabbax0r Wow, that's crazy. I wrote this when I was still a teenager! Glad I could help.

[Gabbax0r]

thats nice. dont know why ipad still doesnt trigger .resize() from vertical to horizontal.

[GreySage]

Of note is that the onorientationchange event is fired BEFORE the dimensions of the screen are actually changed, so if you print out height/width, you will get the numbers for the orientation you just left.