Knowledge base

We have received some questions about iOS supervised mode. What it is, what you can do with it and how to get your iOS devices into supervised mode?

iOS supervised mode is indeed a bit mystical thing as even Apple itself does not provide much of public documentation about it. iOS device can be set into supervised mode either by:

• enrolling it using Apple Device Enrollment Program (DEP), this method is supported also in Miradore Online: http://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815622-About-Apple-Device-Enrollment-Program

• adding the device to DEP manually (requires Apple Configurator 2.5 or newer): https://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005486649-Adding-iOS-11-or-newer-devices-to-Apple-DEP-with-Apple-Configurator-2-5

• preparing the device to Supervised mode and enrolling the device via Apple Configurator: https://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/203137922-iOS-USB-enrollment-with-Apple-Configurator

• prepare only Supervised mode via Apple Configurator: https://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002186477-Enable-Supervised-mode-on-iOS-device-using-Apple-Configurator

Devices in supervised mode have some additional management options, for example:

• multiple additional restrictions: http://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/205264251-Restrictions-for-iOS (see the ones marked with supervised). These restrictions are also marked with a 'S' in Create configuration profile wizard (see attached image).
  
  
• supervised devices offer also some other possibilities, like silent application installation and removal: http://onlinesupport.miradore.com/hc/en-us/articles/203374322-About-application-management

As said, there is not much public documentation about supervised mode from Apple. Here is one explaining 'How to tell if an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is supervised': https://support.apple.com/en-is/HT202837 More documentation can be found also from Apple developer resources.