E52 landscape/portrait view

Question

Is there a way to manually switch from portrait to landscape view and back ?

Answer 1

As etresoft has already said, applications start in portrait; you cannot start an app in landscape mode. Right after the -viewDidLoad is called, if the device is in a different orientation and -shouldAutorotateToInterfaceOrientation returns YES, then -willAnimateRotationToInterfaceOrientation: duration: will get called.
There is a bug in the simulator that might be the cause of your concern. If you start your app from Xcode while the simulator is in landscape, your app will not rotate properly, but it works on the actual device.
If you really don't want to load the portrait webview at app startup, then I suggest you make a method like this:
- (void)loadWebview {
if ([UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation] == UIInterfaceOrientationPortrait ||
[UIApplication sharedApplication].statusBarOrientation] == UIInterfaceOrientationPortraitUpsideDown) {
// load your portrait view
else {
// load your landscape view
Then call the above with a delay in your -viewDidLoad method.