iPad Incompatibilities: Unintuitive Volume Buttons

The iPad is a useful tool. I have two, the ginormous 12.9” iPad Pro and an iPad mini, and I enjoy both. Each has its use case.

The Pro is used for consuming videos, photo editing, reading photography magazines and books, writing, and other activities that benefit from a large screen and, sometimes, a calibrated screen, such as when you enable the reference mode in settings.

The mini is used for quick consumption here and there. I occasionally watch videos on it, read books on Apple Books or even on the Kindle app, browse news, read my feeds, etc.

The ecosystem integration is magical and does wonders. Copying from one and pasting on another, Airdrop, sync, etc. But nothing is perfect.

Two things annoy me all the time. One is understandable, and it’s more of a human error. After using one, I try to unlock the other one the same way. The iPad Pro uses Face ID, but the iPad mini uses Touch ID. I stare at the iPad mini for two long seconds before realising my mistake. Although the opposite also happens, I try to put my fingerprint on the power button on the iPad Pro, it’s less troublesome because the camera can see me and unlocks the device using Face ID.

The other one I consider Apple’s consistency flaw is the absence of adaptive volume buttons on the more expensive iPad. What? Depending on the orientation, the volume buttons are either vertical or horizontal, and they can be on the top, bottom, right or left side related to the user. On the iPad mini, if the buttons are horizontal, the volume button on the right is always volume up and the one on the left is always volume down. If you turn the iPad 180º, iOS inverts the buttons so that the one on the right is always volume up. If the iPad is oriented such as the buttons are vertical, the top button is always volume up. If you rotate the iPad 180º, the buttons switch and the top button (previously the bottom one) becomes volume up.

On the iPad Pro, the most expensive one, this doesn’t happen. It has a preferred landscape and vertical orientation (e.g., camera up). If you rotate the iPad 180º, the volume buttons don’t change. Thus, depending on the orientation, you get the button on the left changing the volume up and the button on the right executing volume down.

The iPad is a great tool, but it’s not without its flaws. The unintuitive volume buttons are just one example. Apple could fix this but hasn’t. For now, I recommend that you get used to which way will increase or decrease the volume regardless of the orientation and take extra care when rotating the iPad 180º. Apple, please, fix this for us.

Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash