From April 2027, apps uploaded to App Store Connect must be built with the iOS & iPadOS 27 SDK or later ( Apple, App Store submissions ). For React Native teams, that SDK brings a hard rule. The React Native 0.88 release post puts it plainly: "Starting with the iOS 27 SDK, Apple requires the UIScene lifecycle", and UIKit apps built with Xcode 27 fail to launch.

The build succeeds. The app stops at launch. That is the worst kind of breakage, because nothing in CI tells you about it.

What React Native 0.88 actually changes

React Native 0.88 ( release post, 19 October 2026 ) adds support for the scene life cycle "as an additive change, keeping backwards compatibility with the AppDelegate path".

That sentence matters. Upgrading an existing app to 0.88 gives you the APIs, but it does not move your app onto them. The community template has been updated, so new apps start with the scene entry point.…