Cordova plugins not work with Ionic

I am building out an Ionic app in Angular and ave never been able to get plugins to work.

As an example, I have tried using the statusbar plugin as described here:

http://ionicframework.com/tutorials/fullscreen-apps/

But it still shows in my app. I tried:

$ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.statusbar

and then "cordova prepare", "ionic run ios" and still no luck.

The plugins I get listed when I type

$ cordova plugin list

com.ionic.keyboard 1.0.2 "Keyboard"
org.apache.cordova.console 0.2.10 "Console"
org.apache.cordova.device 0.2.11 "Device"
org.apache.cordova.statusbar 0.1.7 "StatusBar"

I also am using Gulp. I have a folder with all my dev work in, and gulp moves and compiles it into a /dist folder from whence it is served. I'm pretty sure the plugins are moved across perfectly, is there anywhere I should check the references?

Any ideas if there is something you have to do in order to use Cordova plugins with Ionic?

The answer to this was that I had to add 

<script src="cordova.js"></script>

to my page, just above my scripts.

Please be aware this file doesnt seem to exist during development, it must be injected at runtime or something... which is why I could solve it. Hope this helps someone!

I tested this on Android and iPhone simulator and works correctly. Try this code:

angular.module('starter', [
    'ionic',
    'starter.controllers',
    ... more modules here
])
.run(function($ionicPlatform) {
    $ionicPlatform.ready(function() {
        if (window.StatusBar) {
            // org.apache.cordova.statusbar required
            StatusBar.hide();
        }
    });
})
.... more code

EDIT:

$ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.statusbar
$ ionic build ios
$ ionic run ios

EDIT II: (Try with a fresh Project and iPhone Simulator)

$ ionic start testStatusBar tabs
$ cd testStatusBar/
$ cordova plugin add org.apache.cordova.statusbar
$ vim www/js/app.js


Edit this:
if(window.StatusBar) {
  // org.apache.cordova.statusbar required
  // StatusBar.styleDefault();
  StatusBar.hide();
}

$ vim www/index.html

add class="fullscreen" to the <body> element


$ ionic platform add ios
$ ionic build ios
$ ionic emulate ios