Launch screen not rendering correctly on iPad

I've been having issues with the launch screen in my app displaying correctly on iPad - the launch screen is only showing on ~1/3rd of the display. I think it started when I updated to iPadOS 16 but can't be sure.

To confirm it's not an issue with my launch screen file, I have also tested a launch screen with image and background color (the SwiftUI style I believe) and I created an empty Swift Storyboard app with no modifications. In both cases it exhibited the issue.

This is what it looks like in my app now:

When I originally made the launch screen it would look like this:

This issue appears on my 11" M1 iPad and 12.9" M2 iPad but not on my 6th gen iPad Mini. All 3 devices on are on iOS 16.1. It also does not show up in the iOS simulator. My development machine is on macOS 13 with Xcode 14.1.

Thanks in advance.

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I've had that on my iPad mini (6th-gen). If I recall correctly, I re-did my LaunchScreen storyboard (it's an ObjC app) and the problem went away.

Have you tried deleting the DerivedData? Sometimes that fixes weird stuff like this.

I am working on an app that also has this issue. Has anyone found a work around? If an Apple employee is reading this it would be very helpful to hear if this is a known issue and if there is a work around.

Here are some things I have found while investigating this issue:

  1. This seems to be happening to a variety of apps in the App Store. I have seen this happen in Prime Video, HBO Max, YouTube, and other apps.
  2. One can create a brand new project in Xcode, change the LaunchScreen background to something garish, and observe this happen.
  3. I have seen this happen in iPad OS 16.0 and 16.2.

The main question is if there is a work around or do we need to wait for a future update to fix the issue?

Thanks

I've have the same issue for my app when it starts from scratch in landscape mode at launch screen doesn't fit properly for devices > ios 16

Does your app use column-style layouts(for iOS 14 and later) of UISplitViewController or a classic interface style? I guess the classic interface style might be the problem.

I think this is just a pesky bug. To encourage Apple to fix, it's best to file a Feedback report, especially when you already have a test project that demonstrates the bug.

A super weird workaround for this problem is to add an UIButton (I selected the "Filled Button") to the LaunchScreen.storyboard, and then to add horizontal and vertical alignment constraints to this button. After this I enabled the Hidden property of the button. Since then the launch screen is being resized as expected on my new iPad Pro.

  • Interesting, I tried this and it did not work. Perhaps it increased the odds of it laying out correctly to 50%, hard to say. But it still messes up.

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I'm having the same issue with my iPad mini as well. Only the 1/3 display is rather random. Most of the times, the launch screen is rendered correctly. It makes it even more perplexing. Hope someone will be able to figure out a solution soon!

What worked for me was to create the image in a drawing app (I used Snaggit). Save the image as a png. That image if used as a launch screen for my iPad app did not work it was stretched or it showed as a white black split screen. Save it somewhere so the iPad can get to it. Show it on the iPad. Then take a screen grab on the iPad. I could then edit that image in Snaggit and it consistently displayed as a launch screen after that. This may not work for you but it has consistently worked for me. good luck.