Locking the Device
Hyvä POS is in closed beta
Hyvä POS is currently in a closed beta (pilot phase) with a small group of merchants. It is not yet generally available: the App Store release follows the pilot, and features and configuration may still change, possibly in backwards-incompatible ways, before the general release. Want to take part? Sign up at hyva.io/pos.
Hyvä POS is an app on a general-purpose tablet. Nothing in the app stops someone from swiping to the home screen and opening Safari, the Photos library, or iOS Settings. On a counter device this comes up when staff step away during a quiet hour, when a customer is handed the device to sign or enter an email address, or when a self-checkout kiosk stands unattended in the store.
Locking the device is a system setting, not an app setting. There are two ways to do it, and they solve different problems:
| Guided Access | Single App Mode (MDM) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Built into iPadOS and iOS, free | Needs an MDM and supervised devices |
| Set up | Per device, by hand | Centrally, per device group |
| Survives a restart | No, staff must start it again | Yes, the device boots back into the app |
| Best for | A counter register, a handover moment, a single kiosk | Fleets, and any unattended kiosk |
Guided Access: One-Time Setup
Do this once per device:
- Open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on.
- Tap Passcode Settings → Set Guided Access Passcode and set a code. Give it to managers only: it is the way back out of the locked app.
- In the same panel, turn on Face ID or Touch ID to unlock without typing the code at a busy counter.
Pair your hardware first. Guided Access blocks iOS Settings, so anything that needs pairing there (Bluetooth printers, Bluetooth scanners, some card readers) must be paired before you lock the device. Peripherals that connect through the app (USB-C and network printers, MFi scanners) are unaffected.
Starting a Session
- Open Hyvä POS and get it to the screen you want staff or customers to land on.
- Triple-click the top button (the Home button on devices that have one).
- Tap Options in the bottom-left corner and set what stays available:
| Option | Counter register | Self-checkout kiosk |
|---|---|---|
| Touch | On | On |
| Keyboards | On: staff type discounts, notes, search | On: customers type an email address for a receipt |
| Sleep/Wake Button | Your call | Off, so nobody can blank the screen |
| Volume Buttons | Your call | Off |
| Time Limit | Off | Off: a time limit ends the session |
- Tap Start.
The home gesture, app switcher, Control Center and notifications from other apps are all unavailable until someone ends the session.
Ending a Session
Triple-click the top button (or Home button) again, authenticate with the Guided Access passcode, Face ID or Touch ID, then tap End.
Keep the Screen On and the Battery Full
To keep a register from dimming mid-sale, or a kiosk from showing a black screen:
- Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never keeps the screen awake.
- Keep the device on power. The one-cable counter setups power the device over USB-C from the receipt printer, which covers this without another adapter.
The Restart Caveat
A Guided Access session ends when the device restarts. After a power cut or a system update the device comes back on the home screen, unlocked, with Guided Access still enabled but not running. Someone has to triple-click to start it again.
On a staffed register the first person to pick it up notices. For fleets and permanent kiosks, use Single App Mode.
Single App Mode Through an MDM
If you already run an MDM (Jamf, Mosyle, Intune, Kandji, SimpleMDM and others all support this), lock the device centrally instead:
- Supervise the device, through Apple Business Manager at purchase or with Apple Configurator on a Mac. Single App Mode only works on supervised devices.
- Push a Single App Mode (sometimes called App Lock or Kiosk) profile that pins the device to Hyvä POS.
The device then boots straight into Hyvä POS and re-locks itself after every restart, with no staff action. Ending the lock is an MDM action, so the app cannot be left from the device itself.
The app cannot lock or unlock itself
Autonomous Single App Mode, where an app puts the device in and out of kiosk mode on its own, is not supported by Hyvä POS. The lock is controlled from the system settings or your MDM.
How This Fits With the App's Own Locks
Device locking sits underneath the locks inside Hyvä POS, and they do different jobs:
- Guided Access passcode or MDM profile: keeps the device inside the app. Manager-held.
- Staff login and screen lock: who is selling, and locking the register when someone steps away. The app still runs; the register is just locked.
- Self-checkout exit PIN: leaves the kiosk interface and returns to a staffed register.
A self-checkout kiosk uses all three: the exit PIN gets staff out of the kiosk UI, and the Guided Access passcode or MDM profile gets them out of the app. Without the device-level lock the exit PIN protects the app, but the home gesture bypasses it.