Up until now, livestreaming apps have been all about the portrait orientation, which is kind of strange since most folks prefer to take photos and videos in landscape orientation. That’s changing with Periscope, though, because the livestreaming service is gaining support for landscape broadcasts.
The newest version of Periscope for Android and iOS support landscape video. If you’re viewing a stream that’s in landscape, you can still view it with your phone in the portrait orientation, but you’ll have to turn the device sideways for full screen video.
The addition of landscape video is big for Periscope. Using the landscape orientation for photos and video can often give you a better, wider view of a scene, and landscape Periscope broadcasts will let us better take advantage of the huge screens that are on our phones. And because landscape mode will be supported on the web, too, folks that are viewing broadcasts on their computers will no longer have to deal with huge black bars on the sides of their screen.
Also included in the new version version of Periscope is an indicator that’ll show who shared a broadcast when it appears in your home feed, added support for iOS accessibility features, and easier private broadcasting for Android that’ll let you choose from a list of mutual followers that you want to let into your broadcast. Periscope says that this feature is coming soon to iOS.