On an iPhone, when you tilt your device on its side, the screen follows and rotates to landscape orientation. Turning on portrait orientation locks the screen so that no matter which way your iPhone is turned, the screen will stay in place. Instead of your iPhone screen flipping between portrait and landscape view, you can use portrait orientation lock.
You can lock the screen orientation on your iPhone or later model of iPad quickly and easily in Control Center. If you have an iPad Pro, iPad Mini 4, or iPad Air 2, or any of the later models, you will be able to lock your iPad screen using portrait orientation in Control Center just like you do on iPhone. To do this:
Open the Control Center. On iPhone X or later, swipe down from the top right side of your iPhone screen. If you have an iPhone SE (2nd gen) or an iPhone 8 or earlier, swipe up from the bottom of your screen (3 finger swipe up for VoiceOver users), to open Control Center.
Select the Portrait Orientation Lock icon.
Your device’s orientation will now stay locked in portrait mode until you turn Portrait Orientation Lock off. It’s simple to unlock screen rotation on iPhone or iPad, just open Control Center again and select the lock icon again. There is no option for locking your iPhone screen in landscape mode.
How to Turn on Lock Rotation on Your iPad (Air or Earlier)
If you have an older version on iPad, you can lock your screen on iPad using the side switch. This works for iPad Mini 1/2/3, iPad Air, iPad 2, iPad (3rd generation), and iPad (4th generation). When you have one of those models of iPad, you can set the side switch to lock and unlock your iPad’s screen orientation in Settings or you can use Control Center. To do this:
Open Settings.
Select General.
Select Lock Rotation under Use Side Switch To…
You can now use the side switch to lock your iPad in portrait or landscape mode.
If you prefer to use the side switch as a mute button, you can lock your iPad’s screen orientation by holding the iPad in either landscape or portrait orientation, swiping up to open Control Center, and selecting the Orientation Lock icon.
