iOS 27 Extends Landscape Mode Across More iPhone Apps

Apple is quietly reshaping how iPhones behave when you turn them on their side. Short sentence. The iOS 27 beta broadens horizontal orientation support across many of the system apps users rely on every day, and the result already feels less like a small tweak and more like a UX shift.

Apple Music and Podcasts now show more landscape-aware UI, though for those two the horizontal layout currently centers on the playback screen. Fitness, Health, Reminders, Home, Shortcuts, the Apple Watch companion, Find My, Weather, Voice Memos, and the Apple TV Remote have also gained landscape compatibility, with many apps introducing a new left-hand sidebar to make navigation easier when the phone is held horizontally.

Messages, which previously supported landscape, has received a subtle but welcome refinement: the sidebar can be collapsed down to just contact names and avatars, keeping conversations in view while freeing up screen real estate. Small, smart touches like that are what turn a feature from gimmick to genuinely useful.

There’s another neat addition: Live Activities shown in the Dynamic Island can now switch into landscape mode. Want to see live updates while holding the phone sideways? You can—provided rotation lock is off in Control Center and you rotate the device.

Why the renewed focus on horizontal layouts? History offers a clue. Bigger iPhones used to show the home screen in landscape—remember the Plus-era models—until Apple simplified the interface with the iPhone X. Expanding landscape support now could be preparation for new hardware, and rumor mills point to an iPhone Ultra or even a foldable design in development. A landscape-first UI would make sense for such devices.

The iOS 27 developer beta is available today, and Apple is expected to ship the public release around September, the same window that typically hosts new iPhone announcements. If you like poking around betas, try rotating your device; you might discover small, useful refinements hiding in plain sight.