'Guided Access Is Enabled' alert is shown when screen is touched [UIWebView only]

The 'Guided Access is enabled. Triple-click the home button to exit.' alert normally shown at the top of the screen when the Home button is pressed is also shown when a visitor touches a link or button within the app while in Guided Access mode when using the UIWebView browser engine.

This is a known issue that was introduced in iOS 8, affecting not only Kiosk Pro, but any other apps that use the UIWebView browser engine (including most or all other kiosk-mode browsers). As of iOS 9.2, it appears to occur not only when using Guided Access, but also Single App Mode through Configurator or an MDM.

This issue does not affect the WKWebView browser engine so changing the app's browser engine setting is the easiest way to resolve this error.

Status

Since this bug is a part of the iOS operating system, it's not something we're able to address directly and we have filed a bug report with Apple on this issue. 

To prevent this from occurring for most links, we have implemented behind-the-scenes processing to transform each link before executing it when Kiosk Pro is rendering content through UIWebView. This behavior can be toggled under the app's Advanced Settings menu > Transform Links for Guided Access.  

When using Transform Links for Guided Access, this alert is still shown in certain circumstances, including: 

  • links inside iframes 
  • empty anchor links (<a ref="#">Link</a>) 
  • submit buttons for forms  

Scope

This issue affects devices running:

  • iOS 8 and later
  • all versions of Kiosk Pro when using Browser Engine > UIWebView

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