I was tired of seeing my Expo app double the usual size on iPad (“zoomed” mode). Turns out Expo’s supportsTablet: true had a bug, so the app ran in compatibility mode by default. Enter expo-eas-ipad-support: a tiny config plugin that patches the generated Xcode project so your app recognizes iPads. Now after rebuilding, the comic (or whatever UI) spans the full iPad screen – no more black bars!

  • Real iPad support: Ensures UIDeviceFamily includes iPad, fixing the zoomed mode issue.
  • Easy install: Just run expo install expo-eas-ipad-support (or npm) and add it to your plugins in app.json.
  • Persistent: no need to repatch every build.
  • No XCode needed.
  • Build-time fix: Runs automatically during expo prebuild (triggered by eas build), so you don’t have to touch Xcode or native code.
  • Tiny & zero-overhead: Pure JS (~30 lines, no new deps, no runtime cost).
  • Compatible: Works with Expo SDKs that support config plugins (tested up to SDK 52/EAS as of Mar 2026).

How it looks

Before After
  B      A  

On the right is after using the plugin: the panel now stretches to full iPad width (UIDeviceFamily = [1,2]) and the app runs at native iPad resolution. Much better!

Hope this saves you from manual iOS tricks. For full details (and the source), check out the expo-eas-ipad-support repo on GitHub – happy coding!