How to Lock iPhone or iPad into Kiosk Mode?

July 5, 2018

Nema Buch

Does your business need kiosk devices? Then, you can also think about how to lock the iPad or iPhone to a kiosk mode or single application mode rather than going for the traditional kiosk devices. It is easy, safe, and can be managed remotely, irrespective of the number of devices and their location.

With the help of Scalefusion iOS Kiosk Mode Software, How to lock iPhone or iPad kiosk mode can be enabled in the following way –

Step by Step Guide for How to Lock iPhone or iPad in Kiosk Mode

Apple ID – Preferably the corporate or organization ID
SignUp for Scalefusion Account
An iOS supervised device – To make an iOS device supervised (Know more – How to make an ios device supervised)

Step 1 – Setting up the APNs Certificate

The first step is to allow Scalefusion to remotely connect to your devices. This is an obligatory step to be done for establishing mutual trust between Scalefusion and your Apple Account. Once you have Apple ID and are ready with your Scalefusion account and Apple account details, you need to –

Download a CSR (a file) from Scalefusion
Upload the downloaded file to Apple Account
Download a pem file that Apple provides
Upload the pem file to Scalefusion dashboard

Step 2 – Create a QR Code Configuration

Enrolling the Apple device by using the QR Code helps to simplify the process of onboarding the device. QR Code enrollment avoids manual error with time-saving steps and efficient provisioning of iOS devices. After Step 1 and Step 2, to create a QR Code configuration log into Dashboard and then go to Bulk Enrollment and then select the QR Code. For further explanation of how to configure the QR code.

Step 3 – Enrolling your First Device

After QR code configuration, you can enroll the devices using the QR code.

How to Lock iPhone or iPad into Single App Mode

Single App Mode (SAM) locks the Supervised iOS devices which are deployed as kiosks, on which only one application is supposed to run anytime, all the time.

Go to Device Management tab & then click on Device Profiles.
Choose CREATE NEW PROFILE. It is mandatory to create at least one profile in which you can group the common set of policies that you want to apply. There are various policies that you can apply.

After Clicking on CREATE NEW PROFILE, you will see a screen as shown in the reference image.
Select Apple for the iOS devices, thereafter enter the Profile name and then press submit.

After Submitting, go to the SELECT APPS section and enable the application that you want to set up in Single App Mode.

Thereafter navigate to the RESTRICTIONS section and click on the SINGLE APP MODE tab.
Choose the SINGLE APP MODE option as shown in the reference image. From the Default Application Dropdown, select an application that you want to set in Single App Mode. You can choose one app from the applications that you have allowed in the Select Apps section of Device Profile. So, if you want to run only your business app on the kiosk, you first need to upload and publish in the enterprise store. After that, while selecting the default app in Single App Mode, you select that particular business app.

Further, you can control the following settings when in Single App Mode

Click on Create Profile or Update Profile to save the settings.
On all the iOS devices this profile is applied, the selected app will run in Single App Mode.

You have successfully set your iPhone or iPad in Single App Kiosk Mode!

By these steps, your iPhone or iPad in kiosk mode will be ready to be deployed and be functional. Scalefusion MDM for iOS can seamlessly monitor, manage, and control all the kiosks from a single web-based user-friendly dashboard.