Feature request: support iOS 26's UISearchTab so the search tab renders detached

[tikihak]

What iOS 26 does

On iOS 26, a tab created as UISearchTab is lifted out of the tab bar and
drawn as its own circular button beside it, rather than sitting inline with the
other tabs. Apple's own apps (Books, News) ship this. It is not styling applied
to a normal tab - it is a distinct tab type, handed to the controller through
the tabs API introduced in iOS 18:

tabBarController.tabs = [
  UITab(title: "Article", image: ..., identifier: "article") { _ in ... },
  UISearchTab { _ in searchViewController },   // <- rendered detached
]

What react-native-screens does today (4.28.0)

systemItem: 'search' maps to the pre-iOS-18 UITabBarItem system item, which
renders inline like any other tab:

• ios/conversion/RNSConversions-Tabs.mm - RNSTabsScreenSystemItemSearch →
  UITabBarSystemItemSearch
• ios/tabs/screen/RNSTabsScreenComponentView.mm - each tab is built as
  [[UITabBarItem alloc] initWithTabBarSystemItem:systemItem tag:0]
• ios/tabs/host/RNSTabBarController.mm - the controller is populated with
  setViewControllers:, never the tabs array

UISearchTab appears nowhere in the package. Checked 4.25.2, 4.28.0 and
5.0.0-alpha.2 - all three behave the same.

Why a prop alone cannot fix it

Because the detached rendering follows from the tab's type, and the type is
only expressible through UITabBarController.tabs. A library using
setViewControllers: has no object to make a UISearchTab out of.

Suggested shape

A screen-level option, e.g. role: 'search' (or extending systemItem), that
makes the host build the tab as UISearchTab on iOS 26+, falling back to the
current UITabBarSystemItemSearch below it. That likely means the host adopting
the tabs API on iOS 18+, which is the bigger part of the work.

Environment

• react-native-screens 4.28.0 (also 4.25.2, 5.0.0-alpha.2)
• @react-navigation/bottom-tabs 7.16.2, native tabs (/unstable)
• React Native 0.84.1, New Architecture, iOS 26/27 simulator

Context

React Navigation documents special iOS 26 behaviour for tabBarSystemItem: 'search' - the tab bar transforming into a search field - which does work. The
detached pill is a separate capability and is what this request is about.

[kmichalikk]

Hi @tikihak
We're working on that. Please follow this issue and discussion.