> It was rotated 90 degrees probably for no other reason than because it works well alongside vertical Chinese
Chinese (and Japanese and Korean), when written vertically, the collums are written right to left. In the Mongolian script, the columns are left to right, so I don't know how well it works with Chinese.
> Japanese is probably the most resistant and has its traditionalist holdouts in novels and some print newspapers
Almost every book I have in Japanese, including Japanese-Japanese dictionaries, Kanji dictionaries, kids science books, temple books and even a bilingual Japanese and English Shogi book are written with vertical text (English is horizontal in this last one). My Japanese cookbooks have text in both directions.
Manga text is written vertically, to the point even most translated manga has their pages going right-to-left as their Japanese counterparts.
Chinese (and Japanese and Korean), when written vertically, the collums are written right to left. In the Mongolian script, the columns are left to right, so I don't know how well it works with Chinese.
> Japanese is probably the most resistant and has its traditionalist holdouts in novels and some print newspapers
Almost every book I have in Japanese, including Japanese-Japanese dictionaries, Kanji dictionaries, kids science books, temple books and even a bilingual Japanese and English Shogi book are written with vertical text (English is horizontal in this last one). My Japanese cookbooks have text in both directions.
Manga text is written vertically, to the point even most translated manga has their pages going right-to-left as their Japanese counterparts.
Japanese ebooks can be read vertically too: https://www.preining.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/PW...
I also frequently see very recent Japanese lessons texts and questions all vertically.
So it's definetly not just on novels and some newspapers.
You are correct about the smart phone apps and software in general though.
> this shift is mostly because software can't handle vertical text.
Yes it can. I remember being able to print vertical Japanese almost 20 years ago.
> So the answer is that UI's don't handle it. It's almost always a disaster in software
It does not have to be: https://tategaki.github.io/awards/
edits: orthography, added mention to ebooks