You're holding your iPad, ready to watch a movie or maybe fire up a spreadsheet, and you flip it sideways. Nothing happens. The pixels stay stubbornly locked in vertical mode. It's incredibly annoying. This is one of those tech glitches that feels personal, like the device is just being defiant. Honestly, when an iPad screen will not rotate, it usually isn't a sign that your hardware is dying, though that’s the first place our brains go when things stop working. Most of the time, it’s a software toggle you forgot about or a weird app-specific quirk that Apple doesn’t always make obvious.
I've seen people try to shake their iPads like a literal Etch A Sketch. Please don't do that. The accelerometer inside is a delicate piece of silicon, not a mechanical ball that needs unsticking. Before you book a Genius Bar appointment or consider trading the thing in, let's walk through why this happens and what you can do to get back to landscape mode.
The Control Center Culprit
The most common reason for this headache is the Rotation Lock. It's a tiny icon—a lock with a circular arrow around it. You might have toggled it on by accident while swiping down to change your volume or brightness. It happens to everyone.
To check this, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen. This opens the Control Center. Look for that lock icon. If it’s red or highlighted, your screen is locked. Tap it. It should turn gray or transparent. Now, try rotating your iPad again. If that didn't work, don't panic yet.
There's a weird legacy thing with older iPads too. If you’re rocking an iPad Air, an old iPad mini, or one of the early base models, you might have a physical side switch. Apple used to let you choose if that switch muted the device or locked the rotation. If you have a physical switch above the volume buttons, flip it. See if that changes anything. It’s a bit of a "relic" feature, but for those of us clinging to older hardware, it’s a frequent source of confusion.
Apps That Just Refuse to Budge
Here is something many people forget: Not every app is designed to rotate. Some developers are very rigid. Take Instagram, for instance. For the longest time, it was strictly a portrait experience on the iPad. Even today, many games—especially those ported from iPhones—are hard-coded to stay in one orientation.
If your iPad screen will not rotate while you’re inside a specific app, try swiping up to go back to your Home Screen. Try rotating the Home Screen itself. If the Home Screen rotates but the app doesn't, the problem isn't your iPad. It’s the app. There isn't a "fix" for this other than complaining to the developer or finding a different app. This is particularly common with banking apps or older utility tools that haven't been updated for the modern iPadOS multitasking environment.
The "Have You Tried Turning It Off and On Again" Strategy
It's a cliché for a reason. Sometimes the sensor-to-software communication pipeline just gets clogged. A background process might be hanging onto the orientation data and refusing to let go.
- The Soft Restart: Hold the power button and either volume button until the slider appears. Slide to power off. Wait thirty seconds. Turn it back on.
- The Force Restart: If the screen is frozen or the slider won't work, you need the "hard" way. For iPads without a Home button, press and quickly release the Volume Up button, then the Volume Down button, then press and hold the Top button until the Apple logo appears. For those with a Home button, hold the Home and Top buttons together until you see the logo.
Doing this clears the system's temporary cache. It’s like giving your iPad a quick nap. Often, the accelerometer recalibrates itself during this boot sequence, and suddenly, magically, things start moving again.
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Stage Manager and Multitasking Quicksand
Apple introduced Stage Manager a while back to make the iPad feel more like a Mac. It’s cool, but it changes how the screen behaves. If you have Stage Manager turned on, the iPad is trying to manage multiple windows at once. Sometimes, this prevents a single app from "taking over" the orientation in the way you expect.
Try turning off Stage Manager in the Control Center (it looks like a rectangle with three small dots on the side). See if the rotation returns to normal. I’ve noticed that on some M1 and M2 iPad Pros, the handoff between a windowed view and a full-screen view can occasionally glitch out the rotation sensor's logic.
When it Actually is the Hardware
This is the part nobody wants to hear. If you’ve toggled the lock, restarted the device, checked different apps, and ensured your software is updated, you might be looking at a failing accelerometer.
How can you tell? There’s a trick. Open the "Maps" app or a compass app. If the map doesn't move when you turn or if the compass seems stuck, your internal sensors are likely damaged. This usually happens after a drop. Even if the glass didn't crack, the impact can knock the tiny internal components out of alignment.
If you're under AppleCare, this is an easy fix. If not, it can be pricey. But before you assume the worst, check if you have a very thick, rugged case on your iPad. Some third-party cases—especially those with magnets for "auto-wake" features—can occasionally interfere with the internal sensors if they aren't shielded properly. Take the iPad out of the case and try rotating it "naked." You’d be surprised how often a cheap magnetic cover is the real villain.
Software Updates and Beta Bugs
Are you running an iPadOS Beta? If so, you signed up for this. Beta software is notoriously buggy with UI elements like rotation. If an iPad screen will not rotate on a beta build, your best bet is to report it in the Feedback app and wait for the next "dot" release.
Even on stable builds, Apple occasionally ships a version of iPadOS that has a "rotation bug." Check Settings > General > Software Update. If there is a minor update waiting (like a 17.4.1 or similar), install it. These small patches often contain "stability improvements" which is code for "we fixed the stuff that was randomly breaking for no reason."
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What to do next
Start by checking the Control Center lock icon; it’s the culprit in 90% of cases. If that's clear, move to a hard restart to flush the system memory. If the problem persists across every single app including the Home Screen, remove any magnetic cases and check for available iPadOS updates. If the sensors are unresponsive in the Maps app even after a factory reset, you’ll likely need to consult with an Apple technician to verify if the accelerometer has suffered physical failure.