This is our most popular premium guide. Configure supervised mode for iOS and enforce a content blocking system in a more reliable way.
Here is what you'll learn with this premium guide.
How to Enable Supervised Mode on iOS
The first area we focus on is walking you through the exact step-by-step process of enabling supervised mode on iPhone.
- Safely reset an iPhone so that supervised mode can be enabled
- Properly restore your iPhone's data in a way that won't override supervised mode
Managing and Enforcing Settings Profiles
One of the main reasons to use supervised mode is that you can install settings "profiles" that automatically configure an iPhone in an enforceable way.
In this guide, you'll learn the following:
- Add, remove, or update supervised settings profiles.
- Prevent removal of these profiles.
Recommended Configuration Profiles
After you set up supervised mode and learn how to install settings profiles properly, we'll walk you through our recommended configurations based on our expertise with blocking content and bypass prevention.
- Prevent bypass of content filtering.
- Dumb iPhone : learn the configurations to use if you want to significantly limit the iPhone's features and convert it into a dumber phone that still has a GPS/Camera/other essentials.
Common Use-Cases
Here are some areas that we cover with our recommended configurations.
Enforce DNS Settings
On an iPhone, you can automatically configure DNS settings that point to your content policy by installing a config file. On a standard iPhone, your main way to enforce this DNS config is to restrict access to the iPhone settings app or hope that the iPhone user doesn't figure out how to remove the DNS config. Blocking the iPhone settings app can be incredibly limiting and not ideal.
With a supervised iPhone, you can solve for this by installing a config file that enforces DNS settings on the iPhone with the "prevent removal" option checked. With this approach, you don't need to worry about blocking the settings app.
Prevent bypass of Filtered Home Wi-Fi Connection
If you've gone through the process of connecting your home router to your content policy or another filter provider, you'll want to ensure that an iPhone uses that filtered internet connection. This guide will show you how to prevent the iPhone from bypassing your filtered home Wi-Fi connection.
Block All VPN Apps without blocking the app store
If you are using DNS settings to point to your content policy, you might want to limit VPN apps on the device. The primary way to do this on a standard iPhone is to prevent downloading new apps using screen time.
However, supervised devices can prevent VPN configuration profiles from being added. This effectively disables VPN apps downloaded from the App Store so that you don't have to prevent installing all new apps.
If this method doesn't go far enough, you can use supervised app blocklists to select popular VPN apps and prevent them from being downloaded. This gives you an alternative to disabling the App Store and preventing installation of new apps.
Disable the App Store without breaking app updates
If you want to disable the app store , you normally have to deal with app updates being disabled as well. For example, disabling the app store with screen time will prevent apps from updating unless you re-enable the app store and manually update the apps.
Supervising a device solves for this by allowing you to disable the app store, but still enable app updates.
Block apps that are not installed already
If you use Screen Time on iOS or third-party app blockers from the App Store, they are typically limited to restricting access to apps that already exist on the iPhone. However, you have limited options if you want to block apps on iPhone that aren't already downloaded.
Supervised mode is the solution to this problem. You can create App Blocklists to block apps before they are installed on the device. You can take this a step further with App Allowlists - all apps are blocked by default unless you specifically allow them.
Avoid Common Issues
Supervising an iOS device can take some trial and error if you're doing it yourself - we eliminate the guess-work and show you exactly what to do. Here are the common issues people run into, which we address with our guided walkthrough:
- Supervised mode is removed when restoring data. A common issue people run into during the initial setup. After hard-resetting the iPhone and entering supervised mode, restoring data removes device supervision. This can be frustrating to troubleshoot, but following our instructions will eliminate this problem.
- Entering supervised mode is restricted due to Apple's security settings. This can be a major sticking point for some customers, but we'll help you avoid this issue.
- There are so many options available in the config editor and it can be a bit overwhelming. It can take significant research to figure out which combination of settings are correct. We show you exactly what to do based on common scenarios customer's have.
Get Started
To get started, sign up for a Tech Lockdown account and start a free trial. Then, navigate to the Guides section of the dashboard and select the Supervised iPhone guide.