What is iOS kiosk mode? How to enable & manage Single App Mode

Whether you're a franchise owner with 4,000 point-of-sale iPads or a small local business welcoming a few customer-facing iPads into your tech stack, you need a way to control them. And there's no better way to control an iPad that is purely business than locking it into kiosk mode.

Single App Mode (SAM), often referred to as "Single App Lock" or "kiosk mode," is a feature for supervised iPhones and iPads that restricts the device to running only one app. When SAM is enabled, this setting ensures that devices only run a specific, intended app and maintain a secure and focused environment. It's kind of like application jail! While Single App Mode is enabled, the selected app will stay in the foreground without an option for the end user to exit the application session.

Admins use Single App Mode on supervised devices through Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions. The device gets locked to the assigned app, disabling the home button and barring access to settings or other apps. To exit, an admin must send an MDM command or adjust the configuration profile.

How is Single App Mode used?

There's a lot you can do with kiosk mode (SAM):

• Disable screen touch actions

• Disable device rotation

• Disable volume buttons

• Disable ringer switch

• Disable the sleep/wake button

• Disable auto lock

• Enable voice over

• Enable zoom

• Enable inverted colors

• Enable assistive touch

• Enable speak selection

• Enable mono audio

• Allow voice-over adjustments

• Allow zoom adjustments

• Allow inverted color adjustments

• Allow assistive touch adjustments

When to use Single App Mode

As a sysadmin, I can't tell you the number of times I'd come into work one morning to find that some users in one of my departments (rhymes with "smales") had taken an entire conference room offline the night before in their attempts to watch golf off the iPad. Tale as old as time.

😤😤😤

But no matter your industry, Single App Mode is a simple trick that alleviates device frustrations and improves business use compliance.

Not convinced? FINE, then I'll dazzle you with my use cases: 

Enterprise: End users, like six-year-olds, will start to press buttons if you put them near an idle iPad with nothing to do. This is where SAM comes in clutch. Enabling SAM for Zoom in your Zoom Rooms is the best way to remove that temptation while maintaining your video conference rooms with minimal upkeep.

Point of Sale: Suppose you're a small business or restaurant owner using an iPad as your POS system alongside a payment app. With SAM, iOS devices become POS terminals in Single App Mode, only running necessary payment or inventory apps — and preventing accidental switches during training or peak hours.

Education: I don't run a school, but if I did… SAM would be ideal for keeping learning devices browser-focused. Sprinkle in 10–15 allowed websites with a web content filter profile and a principle of least-privilege management approach for content control, and perhaps you can minimize unexpected tech issues from computer-savvy students. For exams, tablets in SAM can lock students into the test app, preventing access to other apps, search engines, and settings.

Blown away by these scenarios? Don't worry; I'll write a how-to blog on deploying some of these profiles in the future.

What is Autonomous Single App Mode?

Autonomous Single App Mode (ASAM) is like Single App Mode but allows an app to enable or disable Single App Mode independently, without intervention from an MDM solution — in specific scenarios. Since this functionality makes the app responsible for enabling and disabling Single App Mode, apps must be explicitly designed to support ASAM. As a SimpleMDM administrator, you can specify a whitelist of apps that can place themselves in Single App Mode.

This feature is helpful for temporary situations where running a single app is necessary, like taking an exam or giving a presentation. The app can programmatically lock the device into single-app mode and unlock it after the user has completed the task.

How to manage and enable kiosk mode without an MDM

If you don't have an MDM, a poor man's kiosk mode is already integrated into Apple's iOS Accessibility features. This feature is called Guided Access Mode.

Here's how to set it up on an iOS device:

1. Navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access.

2. Toggle the switch to On to enable.

3. On an iOS device, navigate to the application to which you'd like to lock the device.

4. Triple click [home] button [model specific] to start Guided Access Mode and click Start.

5. Set and verify the Guided Access Mode passcode to lock the application to your screen.

To stop Guided Access Mode, triple-click the [home] button [model specific] and enter the Guided Access Passcode you set previously. Then click End.

This feature will give you a locked application screen, but no further management capabilities for Enterprise iOS devices are found in MDM.

You can also manage Apple kiosk mode with an MDM. We'll show you how to do it with our favorite: SimpleMDM.

How to enable kiosk mode with SimpleMDM

Single App Mode is enabled by the MDM administrator in the SimpleMDM interface. To enable Single App Mode or Autonomous Single App Mode, complete the following steps:

Enable kiosk mode:

Click Configs > Profiles and create a Single App Lock profile.

Step by step:

1. Click Profiles.

2. Click Create Profile.

3. Name your profile.

4. Click Single App Lock.

5. Set the App Identifier field to Chrome (com.google.chrome.ios).

6. Click Save.

Example: Watch me build a Single App Lock profile for Chrome in SimpleMDM below.

How to manage kiosk mode with SimpleMDM

To manage Apple kiosk mode for iPads in your organization's device fleet using SimpleMDM:

Click Devices > Groups and select a device group to view the group details screen. 

Click the Profiles tab, select the desired Single App Lock profile from the existing profiles list, and click Save.

Step by step:

1. Click Groups.

2. Select the desired iOS group.

3. Click Profiles.

4. Click Assign Profile.

5. Search the name of the desired Single App Lock profile.

6. Click Assign.

Once you complete these steps, your supervised devices will enter Single App Mode or grant specified apps with Autonomous Single App Mode permissions.

Now, what are you waiting for? Get your kiosk on. 😎

If you don't already have a SimpleMDM account, you can start a free trial today.