If your Android's auto-rotate functionality is on, but the phone screen doesn't auto-rotate, it could indicate a minor glitch or hardware issue. In this case, your first step is to restart your phone.

Your Android device has an accelerometer that detects its orientation by measuring angular velocity and helps rotate your screen.

For all the improvements Android has seen, Google still hasn't managed to make auto-rotation on Android work flawlessly, and it's surprising how inconsistent it can be.

After upgrading the Moto X 2014 to Android 5.0 I noticed that not all of my apps were rotating when holding the screen in landscape mode. No problem, I'll just tap the setting to fix it. Wait ...

It's easy to forget about auto-rotate in everyday smartphone usage, but once it stops working, it can be an annoyance you'll want to remedy immediately.

Android display rotation, reinvented So, for context: Android has long had a native system for handling the dull-seeming chore of deciding when and how, exactly, your screen should rotate itself.