React Native is an open-source framework for building cross-platform applications. It has become an essential part of the toolbox in every software development agency that cares about a strong client relationship. This Facebook 2013 hackathon innovation changed how we look at custom mobile app development today. One codebase for both Android and iOS is highly beneficial. Bloomberg, Tesla, and Uber are among the most recognizable brands with React Native as part of their technology stack. Cross-platform development is the future in delivering software, especially in these times of similar user interfaces across all available platforms. You should definitely find out how React Native development might impact your product, especially when there is an advanced stage of sharing business logic or with web and desktop apps in that technology.

Let’s start with a quick explanation of how it is even possible. Since the beginning of software development, we have based our work on someone else’s previous solution and either use it or generate a higher level of abstraction. React Native development is based on exposed API, which communicates with iOS/Android native UI components via JS Bridge. It promotes declarativity over imperativeness in development (you write code that specifies “what” should happen rather than “how” something should happen). One of the handiest React Native features is “hot reload”, a feature that helps you to speed up the development. How? It’s easy! You don’t need to wait for the whole app to rebuild when you have only changed one line of code (e.g. the color of a button) to see the result. 

The strength of your brand is based on recognition. Modern UI is characterized by consistency across all available platforms, so the user feels a familiarity with the entire product experience. Microsoft has its own Fluent Design System and, unlike competitors with Android Material Design and Apple Human Interface Guidelines, it doesn’t own the mobile platform OS, although it has to come out with an idea for providing its products to be accessible on mobiles. The company from Redmond has a significant impact on the JavaScript community with TypeScript which is a superset of JS with static typing capabilities. Microsoft decided to use their language to build mobile products, something which is perfectly doable. React Native developers working with TS are becoming more and more popular and it has the great advantage of writing safer, less buggy code. All of the above, as well as technological maturity, led us to the point where React Native might be the best choice for custom mobile app development. Now, let’s find out what types of apps are identified as the most suitable for this technology.

You have an idea and you need quick prototyping/proof of concept/minimum viable product.

React Native is definitely the right solution for you!

Example? Have you heard about Airbnb? 

Their website was developed in React and was doing really well at the time, but the increasing popularity of mobile apps forced the team to search for mobile solutions; however, a lack of mobile engineers persuaded them to put their bet on React Native in 2016. Starting from MVP, they maintained and extend the app, reaching the capabilities of that technology in two years. Once they knew the shape of the full mature product and their users’ needs, they decided to go into two full native apps for Android and iOS. 

Lesson learned: think smart, start small, grow, and be agile! 

Sometimes there is an urgent need for an app, you don’t need to care about the maintenance but the speed and being agile in development. This is a great use case for react native development, check the app created in a few days by Ken Wheeler who won the open contest for the Reactive 2015 conference app.

One of the most well-known worldwide fashion magazines, Vogue, released a lifestyle app – Vogueworld. Choosing native development to gain the ability to watch videos, save your favourite images, get alerts on stories/news and share content might be unnecessarily overwhelming. The developers made a great decision to use more lightweight solutions such as React Native. 

What’s the moral of the story? Pick the most appropriate solution to the problem, don’t use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

We all care about the environment, and printing tons of conference booklet or maps hurts the trees and our ecosystem. But an easy solution for this is just around the corner! These days, most everyone has a smartphone. The mobile app is the handiest way of accumulating schedules/timetables/lineups and this is the only way to make it updatable during the event. There is always something on the way, use push notifications to inform everyone immediately about the change or any news. Check out the Pride in London mobile app, which was made in React Native, a perfect solution for the event type app.

React Native is a great choice when it comes to well-structured apps, made from reusable components. One of the handiest features in terms of performance in e-commerce is the lazy-loaded lists; React Native offers FlatList/SectionList components which can handle this very declaratively. Mobile development is always a challenge, but is there any better example of an app than the one from one of the US retail market leaders, Walmart? 

You can read all about them and find out more in our blogpost about the 12 Best React Native Companies & Startups Mobile Apps.

With all the benefits, you need to take into consideration that React Native is young, growing rapidly, and there have been a couple of breaking changes in the past. This requires a good relationship with the React Native development company of your choice because they know the codebase well and will provide you with the required changes in the shortest period of time. Cooperation and trust are the keys to success!

Are you looking for one of the best React Native companies? Check out our reviews on Clutch and contact us so we can discuss and then estimate your future project. Our team of React Native superheroes is waiting to take up the new mobile challenge!

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