I've had a similar issue where the app couldn't access localhost. Ionic now uses a local server (since wkwebview was introduced) to serve local files. When the device's restrictions were set to 'Specific Websites Only', the app would just show a blank white screen after the splash screen.
Adding http://localhost to the list of allowed sites worked.
Also, removing and adding the ios platform helped a bit. Instead of showing a blank white screen after splash it showed a message saying that the site is restricted and offers the user to allow it.
To remove and add the ios platform:
(taken from the ionic docs for wkwebview - https://ionicframework.com/docs/wkwebview/)
Ensure Xcode is closed
Clean install:
rm -rf platforms
rm -rf plugins
Add the platform back
ionic cordova platform add ios
Make sure localhost is allowed:
<allow-navigation href="http://localhost:8080/*"/>
Make sure WKWebView is the default engine:
<feature name="CDVWKWebViewEngine">
<param name="ios-package" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />
</feature>
<preference name="CordovaWebViewEngine" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />
Build ionic ios
ionic cordova build ios
Open Xcode and try to build again.