safeAreaInsets in UIView is 0 on an iPhone X

I recently had a similar problem where the safe area insets are returning (0, 0, 0, 0) as soon as viewDidLoad is triggered. It seems that they are set fractionally later than the rest of the view loading.

I got round it by overriding viewSafeAreaInsetsDidChange and doing my layout in that instead:

override func viewSafeAreaInsetsDidChange() { // ... your layout code here} 

I already figure out the solution: I was doing all the implementation in the init of the view. safeAreaInsets has the correct size in layoutSubviews()

I've run into this issue too trying to move up views to make way for the keyboard on the iPhone X. The safeAreaInsets of the main view are always 0, even though I know the subviews have been laid out at this point as the screen has been drawn. A work around I found, as and mentioned above, is to get the keyWindow and check its safe area insets instead.

Obj-C:

CGFloat bottomInset = [UIApplication sharedApplication].keyWindow.safeAreaInsets.bottom;

Swift:

let bottomInset = UIApplication.shared.keyWindow?.safeAreaInsets.bottom

You can then use this value to adjust constraints or view frames as required.