iOS supervised mode

What is the iOS supervised mode?

The iOS supervised mode is an extension to the standard mobile device management functioanlity provided by iOS and Relution. Additionally to the already seen MDM features, devices in supervised mode can do following:

  • Single App Mode - Force an installed app to stay in the foreground. This app cannot be closed and the user cannot return to their homescreen. This mode can be quit, if you have an extra pin code.

  • Global HTTP Proxy - Allows you to force all internet traffic through a single proxy server.

  • Content Filter - Allows you to configure which URLs can be accessed by the device.

  • Airdrop - Allows you to enable or disable the Airdrop feature.

  • iMessage - Allows you to enable or disable the iMessage feature.

  • Profile installations - You can deny or allow the installation of profiles manualy by the user.

  • Account modifications - Allows changes to the users accounts.

How does it work?

To put the device into supervised mode you have to connect to a Mac OS X device via USB. You will need a software called “Apple configurator” (Link) to setup the device. After you have setup the supervision on the device, Relution is able to apply the extra actions and policies of the supervision mode on to the devices over-the-air. Therefor you have to enroll the supervised device normally into Relution. We are working on more and more supervised features to be included in the next Relution versions.


Enabling supervised mode will start a factory reset on the device and all data will be lost. You also have to know, that if you have a lot of iOS devices, every single one of them has to be connected to a Mac OS X device via USB, which is a lot of work, but gives you more options. Up to 30 devices can be configured at a time by tethering via USB connection.