Summary
Can anyone recommend either a Java library or command line app that can look into a JPEG's EXIF data in order to determine its orientation (i.e. which way is up)? This seems like it should be an easy problem to solve, but I haven't had any luck finding the answer.
Background
Some of you may have noticed that photos taken with iOS 4 no longer automatically rotate "right side up". Instead, the orientation is placed in the EXIF data. Software rendering the photo must look at the EXIF data in order to correctly display the photo. This issue is easily demonstrated by snapping a photo in landscape mode, with an iOS 4 iPhone, and then e-mailing it to yourself and viewing it in a version of Mail prior to Snow Leopard where you'll see that the image is sideways. (See attached screen shot.)
WebObjects & SIPS
I have a WebObjects project which worked beautifully with the iPhone until the release of iOS 4. The project uses Mac OS X's sips command line app to resize photos (sips can also rotate images and it's highly optimized for Mac OS X – I have yet to find anything else that's faster
Sips only allows you to examine certain EXIF data tags; and JPEG orientation isn't one of them.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers,
Joe