In an expo managed app, how do I set "View controller-based status bar appearance -> YES"?

[chriscoomber]

I'm trying to use the statusBarStyle: 'light' option on one of my screens. The documentation for this says:

Requires setting View controller-based status bar appearance -> YES (or removing the config) in your Info.plist file.

Without setting this, I understandably see the error:

If you want to change the appearance of status bar, you have to change UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance key in the Info.plist to YES

However, I'm writing a managed expo app, so I can't edit the Info.plist file directly. How do I make this change?

Extra information

• Simple repro

• I've seen that you can add Info.plist keys to app.json:

  {
    "expo": {
      "ios": {
        "infoPlist": {
          "UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance": true
        }
      },
    }
  }

  • When is this actually applied? It doesn't seem to have any effect on expo go.
  • Do I need to switch to using expo dev client?

• I don't have expo-status-bar installed

[satya164]

Yes, you need to use expo dev client for such options to work.