Google finally lets you disable the Phone app's weird landscape mode

Sometimes, it only takes the smallest change to how something works to really set us off. Earlier this year, Android users starting noticing an odd shift in the behavior of Google’s Phone app: It started supporting landscape mode, and would sometimes automatically switch over to it during calls. That’s not something any of us really asked for, and a horizontal Phone UI just felt all sorts of wrong to many of us who ran into it. The good news: You can finally disable it.

With version 202.0.838486605-publicbeta of Phone by Google, we’re finally seeing the appearance of an option for toggling rotation support off:

We actually spotted developer work on this one a few weeks back, and it looked like it would just be a matter of time before it became publicly accessible. While it’s still in beta for now, that’s absolutely progress, and we can’t wait until it’s finally an option for everyone.

Sure, this is a weird, minor-seeming thing to get upset about — but the arrival of the landscape UI was also a really odd change for Google to bother with in the first place. Heck, when we initially spotted it, it wasn’t even clear that any of this was intentional. Apparently it was, and it’s staying, but at least Google is giving us proper control over it.