The phone stays in place when its placed vertically or horizontally. We really love the ease of just touching the phone to the magnet when we want the phone held and the ease of grabbing it off the magnet when I need to. As for the magnet piece that can stick on your phone, we just placed the magnet between the back of our phone and our phone case, we did not stick it to the phone, our phone case is tight enough that the magnet stays put and doesn’t move at all. Works perfectly.