US Patent 8659553 Orientation-based touchscreen display

A touchscreen device may display various graphical user interfaces (GUIs) based on a physical orientation of the touchscreen device and a context of an application executed by an external device, to control the external device. In one example, a touchscreen device includes a touchscreen, an orientation sensor to determine a physical orientation for the touchscreen device, a context determination unit to determine a context for an application, a computer-readable medium configured to store configuration data associating combinations of contexts for applications and orientations in which the touchscreen device can be physically positioned with respective GUIs, a control unit that receives the orientation in which the touchscreen device is physically positioned and the context, selects the GUI associated with the determined orientation and the context, and causes the touchscreen to display the selected GUI, and an external device interface configured to send input received via the touchscreen to an external device.