Why does rotating my phone to take a picture not rotate the photo?

Question

If the phone is upside down, why does the picture come out right-side up, instead of upside down?

Edit: changed sideways to upside down; better example of my question

In: 0

Answer 1

This is because phones are smart these days. They contain a little device that can measure or “meter” acceleration, called an “accelerometer”. The most common acceleration we experience is gravity that constantly pulls us downward.

By looking at the output of the accelerometer the phone can know what its orientation is with regard to gravity and orient the photo properly. Without that point of reference, such as if you were floating in free fall, then it wouldn’t know to reorient the picture.