Are you unable to rotate your iPhone screen to the landscape orientation, forcing you to always type on the much smaller portrait keyboard? This can be frustrating, as many apps are much easier to read and use in landscape mode.
Fortunately this is a problem that can be fixed, and it is due to a setting that is turned on that prevents your screen from rotating. This setting is called Portrait Orientation Lock , and is something that can be enabled by accident, thereby causing you some frustration when you are trying to turn your iPhone sideways, only to have it remain stuck in the portrait orientation. Our tutorial below will shwo you how to find this setting so that you can turn it off and once again be able to rotate your screen.
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Turning Off the Portrait Orientation Lock on an iPhone
The steps below are for an iPhone running the iOS 8 operating system. These steps may not work for iPhones running earlier versions of iOS. If you are using iOS 6, this article will show you how to turn off this lock. iOS 7 users can also follow the steps below.
Step 1: Swipe up from the bottom of your iPhone Home screen to reveal the Control Center.

Step 2: Tap the Lock icon at the top-right of the Control Center to turn it off. You will be able to rotate your screen when this icon is gray, as in the image below.

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Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.
After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.
His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.
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