Cordova, Image tag (or background property) - no image in iOS emulator.

I have a ST 2.3.1 app that needs to load images from a server. It works fine in Chrome, but has issues with Cordova.

I try it several ways:

(a) tag = new Image()) and then set tag.src = uri.

(b) add({ xtype: 'image', src: uri })

(c) setStyle('background-image','url("' + uri + '")');

The uri is fully specified (http://).

They all work fine in Chrome. However, when I compile it with Cordova 3.4 (or 3.3) any Ext.Img url refs do not load. The Cordova config.xml has the proper <access origin="*" /> tag. It happens on iOS (including inside the iOS emulator on my Mac). Ajax works fine (i.e., I can call the same url via ajax and get the data quickly -- but the server doesn't support base64 yet, so this is problematic).

Any ideas?