Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Using The Orientation Sensor To Think Mobile First

I wrote a simple app today, using Google App Inventor, to explore the power of the orientation sensor in a mobile phone. Using the orientation sensor, we can find out the how a use is holding the phone. It is possible to find out if the user if holding it vertically or horizontally. Since we know the orientation, it is possible to display appropriate functionality or appropriate user interface for that particular orientation.

This is remarkable, because this is something we don't think of when building apps for the browser. So when we design mobile apps, let us not just shrink the browser apps for a small screen. Let's think mobile first when designing applications so that we can take advantage of the numerous possibilities offered by a mobile device.

In the video below, I demonstrate the app, talk about why i wrote it, and share the code for the app.



Logic For Orientation Sensing

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