When Google released the Nexus 7, many people were a bit surprised and annoyed that the home screen was locked to portrait mode, though other apps would rotate into either portrait or landscape as needed. Sure, many phones have a non-rotating home screen, but phones are typically portrait devices whereas many tablets are suited to a landscape orientation.
If you prefer to hold your Nexus 7 in the more traditional tablet manner and not have to tilt your head to read your home screen, you’re in luck. Ultimate Rotation Control is an app that essentially forces your tablet’s home screen, or any app for that matter, to rotate. Once launched, the app stays resident in your notification area and allows you to either toggle rotations from any screen, let the system control rotations, or lock the rotation completely. In other words, you get full rotation control. You can even set specific rotations per app.
Personally, I haven’t felt the need to handle rotation any differently than the Nexus 7 does out of the box. In my opinion, it’s designed that way on purpose and for a reason. Because of the size and shape of the tablet, it uses more elements of Android’s phone UI rather than its tablet UI, and to me that makes perfect sense. But, this being the land of choice and freedom, it’s nice to see the choice being available for those who feel differently.
A 7-day free trial ($2.99 thereafter) is available in the Play Store.