took me forever but I hope this helps someone else. For Kivy-iOS, this needs to be entered into the main.m file in Xcode, at the bottom of the main() function. int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {     int ret = 0; that's the start of main() then all the main code, with the following code near the bottom.     // If other modules are using the thread, we need to initialize them before.     PyEval_InitThreads();     // Add an importer for builtin modules     load_custom_builtin_importer(); then, You need to put the below code after that     // Prevent sleep         [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:2.0 repeats:YES block: ^(NSTimer * _Nonnull timer) {             [UIApplication sharedApplication].idleTimerDisabled = NO;             [UIApplication sharedApplication].idleTimerDisabled = YES;             NSLog(@"idle timer");         }];         NSLog(@"Initializing python");     Py_Initialize(); hope this helps someone else.