“What’s the breakdown for tablets by device orientation?”

I don’t know – because Google Analytics won’t say (at least not without some extra help) but I will take advice from someone that knows a bit.

The above screenshot is from Luke Wroblewski’s Mobile Design Essentials, Conversions@Google 2015 session. (Watch the whole thing – it’s a very enlightening strategic talk on how things are changing and where we’re going.)

So – roughly 45% portrait, 55% landscape. Thanks Luke.

Here’s some other screens from his Screen Time talk for Google Conversions talk.

lukew_screentime_Page_001
lukew_screentime_Page_013
lukew_screentime_Page_014
lukew_screentime_Page_016
lukew_screentime_Page_017
lukew_screentime_Page_018
lukew_screentime_Page_038
lukew_screentime_Page_041
lukew_screentime_Page_043
lukew_screentime_Page_059
lukew_screentime_Page_060
lukew_screentime_Page_061
lukew_screentime_Page_065
lukew_screentime_Page_069
lukew_screentime_Page_070
lukew_screentime_Page_075
lukew_screentime_Page_076
lukew_screentime_Page_078
lukew_screentime_Page_079
lukew_screentime_Page_080
lukew_screentime_Page_081
lukew_screentime_Page_082
lukew_screentime_Page_083
lukew_screentime_Page_085
lukew_screentime_Page_096
lukew_screentime_Page_103

 

Dig deeper, specifically looking at iOS apps, and it seems everything depends on the specific app context.

This 2011 article by Thomas Park, In Portrait or Landscape, covers the topic of orientation for tablet apps in the iTunes store (top 25 of each category).

Look at this:

categories

Gaming apps – the figures are extremely game heavy – tend to be landscape only. (Note above this are books “Most of the book apps turn out to be children’s books books or otherwise richly illustrated.The adult reading mostly falls under News, Newsstand, and within iBooks.”)

Now – let’s see if we can get that orientation data into Google Analytics…

Last updated on 4th September 2018