[android] Why does an image captured using camera intent gets rotated on some devices on Android?

By combining Jason Robinson's answer with Felix's answer and filling the missing parts, here is the final complete solution for this issue that will do the following after testing it on Android Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), Android 4.4 (KitKat) and Android 5.0 (Lollipop).

Steps

1. Scale down the image if it was bigger than 1024x1024.

2. Rotate the image to the right orientation only if it was rotate 90, 180 or 270 degree.

3. Recycle the rotated image for memory purposes.

Here is the code part:

Call the following method with the current Context and the image URI that you want to fix

/**
 * This method is responsible for solving the rotation issue if exist. Also scale the images to
 * 1024x1024 resolution
 *
 * @param context       The current context
 * @param selectedImage The Image URI
 * @return Bitmap image results
 * @throws IOException
 */
public static Bitmap handleSamplingAndRotationBitmap(Context context, Uri selectedImage)
        throws IOException {
    int MAX_HEIGHT = 1024;
    int MAX_WIDTH = 1024;

    // First decode with inJustDecodeBounds=true to check dimensions
    final BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    options.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
    InputStream imageStream = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(selectedImage);
    BitmapFactory.decodeStream(imageStream, null, options);
    imageStream.close();

    // Calculate inSampleSize
    options.inSampleSize = calculateInSampleSize(options, MAX_WIDTH, MAX_HEIGHT);

    // Decode bitmap with inSampleSize set
    options.inJustDecodeBounds = false;
    imageStream = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(selectedImage);
    Bitmap img = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(imageStream, null, options);

    img = rotateImageIfRequired(context, img, selectedImage);
    return img;
}

Here is the CalculateInSampleSize method from the pre mentioned source:

/**
  * Calculate an inSampleSize for use in a {@link BitmapFactory.Options} object when decoding
  * bitmaps using the decode* methods from {@link BitmapFactory}. This implementation calculates
  * the closest inSampleSize that will result in the final decoded bitmap having a width and
  * height equal to or larger than the requested width and height. This implementation does not
  * ensure a power of 2 is returned for inSampleSize which can be faster when decoding but
  * results in a larger bitmap which isn't as useful for caching purposes.
  *
  * @param options   An options object with out* params already populated (run through a decode*
  *                  method with inJustDecodeBounds==true
  * @param reqWidth  The requested width of the resulting bitmap
  * @param reqHeight The requested height of the resulting bitmap
  * @return The value to be used for inSampleSize
  */
private static int calculateInSampleSize(BitmapFactory.Options options,
                                         int reqWidth, int reqHeight) {
    // Raw height and width of image
    final int height = options.outHeight;
    final int width = options.outWidth;
    int inSampleSize = 1;

    if (height > reqHeight || width > reqWidth) {

        // Calculate ratios of height and width to requested height and width
        final int heightRatio = Math.round((float) height / (float) reqHeight);
        final int widthRatio = Math.round((float) width / (float) reqWidth);

        // Choose the smallest ratio as inSampleSize value, this will guarantee a final image
        // with both dimensions larger than or equal to the requested height and width.
        inSampleSize = heightRatio < widthRatio ? heightRatio : widthRatio;

        // This offers some additional logic in case the image has a strange
        // aspect ratio. For example, a panorama may have a much larger
        // width than height. In these cases the total pixels might still
        // end up being too large to fit comfortably in memory, so we should
        // be more aggressive with sample down the image (=larger inSampleSize).

        final float totalPixels = width * height;

        // Anything more than 2x the requested pixels we'll sample down further
        final float totalReqPixelsCap = reqWidth * reqHeight * 2;

        while (totalPixels / (inSampleSize * inSampleSize) > totalReqPixelsCap) {
            inSampleSize++;
        }
    }
    return inSampleSize;
}

Then comes the method that will check the current image orientation to decide the rotation angle

 /**
 * Rotate an image if required.
 *
 * @param img           The image bitmap
 * @param selectedImage Image URI
 * @return The resulted Bitmap after manipulation
 */
private static Bitmap rotateImageIfRequired(Context context, Bitmap img, Uri selectedImage) throws IOException {

InputStream input = context.getContentResolver().openInputStream(selectedImage);
ExifInterface ei;
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 23)
    ei = new ExifInterface(input);
else
    ei = new ExifInterface(selectedImage.getPath());

    int orientation = ei.getAttributeInt(ExifInterface.TAG_ORIENTATION, ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_NORMAL);

    switch (orientation) {
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_90:
            return rotateImage(img, 90);
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_180:
            return rotateImage(img, 180);
        case ExifInterface.ORIENTATION_ROTATE_270:
            return rotateImage(img, 270);
        default:
            return img;
    }
}

Finally the rotation method itself

private static Bitmap rotateImage(Bitmap img, int degree) {
    Matrix matrix = new Matrix();
    matrix.postRotate(degree);
    Bitmap rotatedImg = Bitmap.createBitmap(img, 0, 0, img.getWidth(), img.getHeight(), matrix, true);
    img.recycle();
    return rotatedImg;
}

-Don't forget to vote up for those guys answers for their efforts and Shirish Herwade who asked this helpful question.