Figured out how to hide the status bar. First of all, StatusBarIOS is deprecated so you need to import StatusBar and then simply include this code snippet at the top of your render:
It should be the parent component of a screen and can optionally use a backgroundColor to match the color of your screen. Make sure to set a flex attribute. Your components will now just take up any area not being used by the status bar. This is especially useful in getting around the 'notch' issue with some of the newer phones.
SafeAreaView is a component of react-native so you will need to make sure you add it to your imports:
import { SafeAreaView, Text, View } from 'react-native';
It hasn't worked doesn't matter what you have tried?
Maybe there is another <StatusBar hidden="false"> in your code. And it is deeper than your definition. This will replace your previous hidden="true" setting.
<View>
<StatusBar hidden={true} /> // this will be replaced by the deeper StatusBar tag
<View>
<StatusBar hidden={false} /> // remove this or put your `hidden="true"` here
</View>
</View>