system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why don't phones just take video in landscape mode even when people hold the phones vertically?

Everyone hates vertical videos, and yet the easiest way to hold a phone to take a video is by far holding it vertically.  So we wind up with tons of vertical videos.

Is there some hardware barrier preventing the software from simply taking landscape videos regardless of orientation?  Isn't the aperture on the device round?  Is this just a software oversight that everyone mysteriously has, or is there some actual hardware limitation?
gpt
It's a hardware issue. The sensor in the phone that captures the image is rectangular and only oriented one way relative to the phone.

Phone manufacturers could put the sensor on some mechanism that allows it to rotate so you could take landscape photos while the phone is vertical or vice versa, but that means there's added complexity, greater chance of failure, and it would drive the cost of the phone up. Overall, it's just easier for users to simply turn their phone around.