People say that Nokia N900 lacks portrait mode in homescreen and applications. Some time ago I’ve found desktop widget with pretty descriptive name (shown in my app manager) Application launcher widget with portrait mode a.k.a. DrLaunch.

There are some applications that already have portrait mode, like built-in phone that probably everyone uses, Brain Party or SPB Brain Evolution 2. Mostly I was placing application shortcuts for these to be reachable with my thumb when phone is rotated to portrait (but still icons were showing in landscape specific way). I was even thinking of creating alternative icons rotated to appear ‘portretized’.

One day i’ve discovered this strangely long name in application manager, and found it interesting. Auto rotating widget appeared on my homescreen with 4 application shortcuts. After digging in options I’ve found that grid may contain maximum 16 applications but if you have something on your wallpaper that you want to have visible you can leave some empty spaces. All of placed shortcuts are rotating along with the phone, so in portrait you have all of the grid rotated by 90 degrees. Another nice feature I like in this widget is that it doesn’t start application after shortest tap, you need to press for about half a second, so it prevents starting applications by accident when you have some turbulences in bus or tram and tap shortcut on the homescreen by accident.

I find this widget really useful and I think it’s small step ahead to have more interactive homescreen. More widgets should be auto-rotating, especially if they’re square-shaped, which should be fairly easy to do, no complex transformations or resizing. There is really big potential in this widget.

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MJ