Lock Down Your iPad Kiosk, Or This Sort Of Thing Happens

August 29, 2016 by Dave Haynes

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If your business is putting consumer tablets out in public areas, it’s really important you take the necessary steps to ensure the device is locked to only offer up the experience that you intended.

If you don’t, you get bemused people who know their way around software and devices, who see if they are indeed locked down. And if they’re not, they leave behind their mischief. Just because …

Here we have an iPad being used for “customer engagement” at a new Whole Foods in Brooklyn. You can order “curated” seasonal fruits and vegetables off the iPad in the store, and I’m guessing this thing is to show the mobs of hipsters that’s all possible – cuz otherwise it seems seriously weird to order fruits and veggies when you are RIGHT THERE in a grocery that’s all about fresh and organic.

Anyway, a friend who will remain nameless happened to be in the store, walked up, poked at the screen, and quickly discovered he could also get out to the mean old Internet, and that there were no filters. So he went to Reddit, curated a semi-naughty photo, and left. After taking a pic.

My guess is that this is the produce vendor Baldor (which sounds like Game of Thrones character) who put this in, not Whole Foods.

Locking down an iPad to kiosk mode and a single domain takes a few screen taps. It’s an effort well worth the 30 seconds, or whatever it takes.

Says my industry friend: “I don’t understand how these companies just don’t get their shit straight on these things.”

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  1. Let this serve as a lesson to all who are into technology but do not do their homework as to who provides the lock down capabilities necessary to keep these things from happening. Thank you for posting this Dave.

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