Can You Do It When It's Unlocked?

When you're holding the phone with the camera at the top and the port at the bottom, the volume buttons are on the left, and on the eye pad they're on the right. Can you do it when it's locked? I don't know that you can. You might be able to, but it still is interesting to me. But i guess it has something to do with the way apple presumes you would put the laptop in horizontal mode while in a keyboard,. With modern ones that have the smart connector, you kind of have to do it that way.