applyProperties not working consistently on rotate

So keeping up to date with the spec and docs, I've read the old way to "apply" properties is simply

view.width = yourNewWidth;
view.height = yourNewHeight;

That is how I've been doing things for a while..and it works. (these get applied on rotate);

So the new way would be:

view.applyProperties({
  width: yourNewWidth,
  height:yourNewHeight
});

For some reason this only works sometimes. Sometimes it does nothing. Anyone know why?

I am using the latest version of Ti Studio and Titanium 3.1.3 SDK (haven't upgraded to 3.2.0 yet) and I am building for iOS.