The volume control should reverse operation for some orientations.
Left side down, and upside down.

I'm constantly adjusting the vol the wrong way in those orientations.

I don't believe any tablet or phone really does that. I think I tend to just think of the buttons in relation to their closest corner instead of which direction is up.

Have you suggested this to Apple? I'm willing to do so too, to help bump it up a bit. Makes more sense for the iPad to do this, since it can be used in a 0, or 180 degree orientation. One of the small details that is interesting they missed, probably from the OS starting on a phone where 180 degree rotation wasn't supported.

180 degree rotation has been supported on the phone for as long as I can remember.

I for one, in many thousands of hours of usage, have never accidentally used the wrong volume button on an iPad or iPhone. I'm pretty sure I would have if the buttons changed function based on orientation.

Quite apart from anything else, with the screen off how would you know which orientation the screen was in !

I'm sure this wasn't "missed"- it had to have been a conscious decision, though not one I'm crazy about. I actually use it quite a lot with the volume buttons at the top due to the way the cover is designed, and I hate that the buttons feel backwards to me.

I just wanted to chime in in case I was reading it a certain way, but Android tablets/phones will rotate all the way around too.

Hmm. I've misremembered that haven't I...

I'm mixing it up with the trick where you can stop Safari reverting to portrait without using the rotation lock, by holding the phone upside down.

That would be the point of automatically switching the button functions, you wouldn't have to remember. The top button would always increase volume and the bottom decrease. Or right/left if sideways.

Not a huge issue, but it's one of those fine points pundits always like to say Apple pays especially close attention to. IMO, Apple doesn't have an especially close attention to detail, they're just a lot better than most other companies in *some* respects.

Personally, the most annoying auto/non-auto missing feature is WiFi network priority. You can have an iOS device automatically join a wifi network, but there's no way to tell it which ones should be prioritized. So when you're in range of multiple, it may join one you would rather not join, even if it has lower signal strength.

Case in point: my iPhone is set up on 4 or 5 neighborhood WiFi connections. When I'm down the street, my connection will go out of range and it will join a different one. When I get back home, that other connection will stay connected with very low signal strength and I have to manually join my own full-strength connection. That's a huge PITA.

And besides signal strength, my own WiFi network gives me access to my LAN, while others of course don't.

That wouldn't work. Think about it:

- my phone is in my pocket, I want to change the volume
- I pull it out of my pocket
- I reach round with my fingers to adjust the volume, changing the angle to phone is at

Now guess which button is going to do which function...

Or even worse, try and guess exactly which way up the phone is if I choose to adjust the volume when it is in my pocket !

Then take into account what happens if you change the orientation while changing volume. I'm guessing you say you delay the switching the buttons functionality if I currently changing the volume. But for how long ?

It would be a mess.

I have an annoying wifi problem too, though it isn't really Apple's fault.

With my O2 tariff I get free wifi on BT's Openzone hot spots, which is great (if we ignore for a moment the problems around when you change phone and hence MAC address).

However BT now have at least two different flavours of Openzone hotspot. The normal ones I can use, but they also have the ones that are served up by their broadband customers' wifi access points. These ones you can use unless you are a BT broadband subscriber or pay separately to use them.

None of which would be a problem, except that BT opted to use the same SSID for both types. Which means when I roam onto one of the types I can't use, all of a sudden I have no network connection. Very annoying when you don't notice immediately and even then annoying as you have to go in and turn wifi off.

My guess for why they don't have the buttons change function is because you wouldn't have a single clue which one did which if the phone/tablet were laying flat on a surface. You wouldn't have any idea what position the tablet was in the last time it was picked up, so you'd end up hitting the wrong button and get frustrated.

Best just leaving the buttons to do the same thing each time.

Of course, I have to bring it up: I'd be willing to bet that there's an Android application that would let you do this. I wouldn't ever want to install it, because I'd hate for my volume buttons to work this way, but those who would want it could have it.

I wrote primarily about the iPad. I don't know that it's ever been a problem on my iPod touch.

I think the difference between those is size. In my mind the touch defiantly has a top edge, all the time, it's determined by simoutaniously feeling the buttons and the case corners using one hand. That doesn't seem to apply with the iPad.

My iPad spends more time in various orientations. It all depends on the slack of the attached wires and how I'm making use of the smart cover to prop it up.

Whenever the hinge side is down, I want to use the buttons to drive the visual bargraph r or l. In that mode they run anti directional.

It really is one of those bits of detail that apple is typically noted for.

I am pretty pessimistic about this ever changing now.

I would send a note to apple about it, but I really don't know where to address it. No doubt there is a web form buried somewhere in apple.com.

Wow, I'm coming to Apple's defense. What has this forum come to?

Some of you keep saying this is an oversight from a normally detail-focused Apple. I say that it's completely intentional.

This is really a difference in spatial reasoning. For you, it makes more sense for the functions to change based on orientation, You're relating the buttons to the area outside the device as well as the what's happening on the screen. But you seem to be assuming that everyone thinks this way, and that's not the case. The rest of us (and I'm assuming I'm not alone) prefer to relate the position of the buttons with the frame of the device. That way I always know that the same button will do the same thing in every position. That makes more sense to me.

So either way, there will be a group of people who are unhappy with the way it works. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple indeed tested changing the volume buttons with a change in orientation, and determined that it would just be too confusing for enough people, and that simpler was better in the long run. And before you say it: no, I'm not implying they used focus groups. Thankfully they don't!

Apple have always been against the remapping of hard buttons on iOS devices and I'm not surprised they didn't go for an orientation-based functionality with the iPad.

Remember that camera apps were not being accepted for the app store when they used a volume button for shutter release. Now Apple has added that functionality themselves so third parties can too. Nevermind the volume button sucks as a shutter release and having the lens on the bottom right of the "camera" is equally terrible.

So it won't surprise me if Apple at some point added an option for something like this on the iPad. I don't know if I'd ever use it myself, so I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Or if you want to file it as a formal enhancement request and have tracking information, it's an option with the bug report site:

https://bugreport.apple.com/

Again, I think it was an intentional decision.

However, you have to admit that it's an odd feeling when using the cover to prop up the iPad and the buttons do exactly the opposite of what the image shows.

Great example of Apple's lack of attention to detail in iOS:

You're composing an email reply to which you'd like to add an image.

No problem. Copy the entire contents you've already written and then cancel the reply, deleting the draft.

Go to your photo roll, view the image you want to send and then click the send button, then pick email. Wait a few seconds until the mail process is started. Type the recipient's address - no, this will not be threaded as a reply. Type a subject (can you remember what the previous one was?) Now paste the contents of your clipboard above the image.

Want to attach another image? Send that email and start all over again with another image.

iOS email is beyond useless and I'd be surprised to hear it took anyone more than a couple of weeks to put it together.

Sparrow (third party email client) is honestly worth losing push notifications for.

Biggest hopes for iOS 6 - being able to hide or delete Apple pre-installed apps (not the frameworks if they're part of the OS) *AND* being able to define default apps to be used for core services, like web and email. Just like on the desktop (every desktop).

I don't like the 50mb limit to downloads over cellular data. If I had access to WiFi or a computer at the time, I'd probably use it over the data plan to begin with.

Or you could just switch to the photo app, copy the photo(s) you want, and switch back to e-mail and paste it.

Apple phones don't provide a way to attach images to emails from the composition screen?

Android does allow you to attach an image (and through the intent system, any arbitrary file and maybe any arbitrary data blob). However, I don't know how to accept selecting multiple images from the gallery. I can put check boxes next to them but don't know how to says "yes, send these". So I have to attach multiples one at a time.

True and a much better workaround as you'll keep the message as a proper reply and have the ability, with more app switching, to paste multiple images.

Still kind of a kludge that would be best fixed by a much better email program with an add-attachment feature.

Caleb, nope. In another iOS included app (Messages) the user is given a camera icon which offers to take a picture or choose an existing one. Most 3rd party apps do this as well. But no, Mail does not.

Bruno, In Photos, hit the share button. Then you can select up to 5 images for copy instead of one individual one.