What's the difference between Screen Orientation and -Rotation on Android?

Question

What's the difference between Screen Orientation and -Rotation on Android? The terms are often used interchangeably on the web it seems.

According to a discussion on the deprecation of Display.getOrientation() for getRotation() the concepts are often misunderstood/confused. No further explanation is provided however.

I suspect it's important to understand the intricacies of Orientation and Rotation on Android devices to correctly display an App even on exotic devices.

Answer 1

At the link you gave Miss Dianne Hackborn clearly stated;

"getOrientation() has never returned orientation, it returns rotation. So it is being renamed to getRotation(). This is much less confusing. In fact you were confused -- you thought it returned orientation, when it does not."

To describe more deeply;

• Orientation: is concept for defining landscape, portrait, ...
• Rotation: Returns the rotation of the screen from its "natural" orientation. The natural orientation is important here, because it is landscape on tablets and portrait on smaller devices.