Is there any way to disable the Home button on an iPad?

My professor asked me to help him out to find some information about the iPad.

We are going to buy like 10 iPads to give it out to our senior of the school board and we want only the PDF file that we are going to sync it to be appear on the screen.

I know this is almost impossible without jailbreak, but the iPad wouldn't be able to jailbreak and the people who going to get the iPad they don't really know how to use them, and if they sometime press on the home button they will mess it up and don't know how to get back to the screen that have PDF file.

So I heard of Kiosk Pro but really I don't know how it works and I don't know if they will spend that much of money to buy the license again to this task.

So I want to know some information from you guys if there is any demo app like what Apple does put the iPad 1 beside each of the products to show the specification of the product and have the case cover the home button so no one can go back to home screen?

Thanks.

Solution 1:

iOS 6 now has a software feature to block variable parts of the screen and hardware buttons. The feature is called "Guided Access". A PIN is needed to unlock the device afterwards.

How to use Guided Access

Solution 2:

Not easily via software. There is a cottage industry of caps to place over the home button to make it hard or impossible for toddlers to press that button.

The bubcap is one such product but in your case, it might not help if the users are determined to press the button.

The simplest solution may be to buy an iPad case that covers the Home button, or modify an existing case that doesn't (e.g. glue a cover over the button hole).