You've probably encountered a problem while trying to show someone else a picture in the iPad's Photos app. As you pass the iPad around, the accelerometer keeps flipping the image from portrait to landscape to upside-down landscape and back again, which can be annoying. You may also want to stop the screen turning when in a Home Screen or even an app.

With the introduction of iOS 4.3 Apple have opened up two options to lock the screen orientation ensuring that there's an easy way to fix this.

Hardware

You can customise the switch on the side of your iPad to lock the screen rotation or mute the volume (See image - ). So you can lock your iPad display in landscape or portrait. Or quickly go from volume on to volume off.

To customise the switch simple go to Settings --> General find the heading ‘Use Side Switch To: and select either Lock Rotation or Mute. A tick will appear next to the selected option.

To lock the screen orientation simply turn the iPad to the required orientation an slide the switch down. To unlock simply slide the switch up.

Note that in the multitasking interface, accessed by double-clicking the Home button, the lock orientation button is replaced by the volume mute button.

Software

Turn the iPad to the orienation you require then Double-Click the Home button (See Image Below - ) and the multitasking interface will pop up. To lock the screen orientation swiping to the left most multitasking screen which will bring up a number of fixed controls. Tap the left most button, which is square with an image of a circular arrow inside it. A padlock will appear in the centre of the button. The screen orientation is now locked and an orientation lock icon appears in the status bar.

To unlock picture orientation just, double-click the Home button and the multitasking interface will pop up. Swipe to the left most multitasking screen and tap the left most button, which is square with an image of a circular arrow inside it and a padlock inside the circle. The padlock will disappear in the centre of the button, and you're done.