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Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

engineering.shopify.com

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Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#121

Post by wdb »

I am always wondering what the difference is between writing three differents targets, iOS, Android and Web using RN (even Flutter is a better choice imho).

Basically you want to share the business logic between them. You still need to spend time to write UIs for iOS and Android which following interaction paradigms of the platform.

Personally, I can't stand iOS apps that look like Android.

Currently, I am happily working on a project where I write all the business logic in Swift and share between the web app (WebAssembly) and the iOS and Android app. The only bit that I customise is the UI part. I quite enjoy this approach.

(I have to admit for me writing native mobile app in JavaScript/TypeScript feels wrong. Guess, I don't like that language enough)

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#122

Post by carierx1 »

alexashka wrote: post #58
newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

You're viewing it through the lens of a developer. The user wants the best experience. Because software costs 0$ to distribute, the best user experience will always win out. The future of all software is faster, better software. Websites are shitty, arcane technology - the opposite of the future.

The web is truly a horrible user experience. Thankfully the its dying and native apps will prosper.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#123

Post by avip »

newfeatureok wrote: post #7

Honestly I think the future of mobile will just be... mobile websites. What's missing until regular websites have parity with mobile apps in functionality? - Accelerometer and all sensor support (some of these are already supported on various browsers on various OSes) - Background support - Bluetooth - WiFi - Better notifications - etc. Sure there will always be a need for native, but 99% of apps don't need any of th…

Offline is still a thing.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#125

Post by wdb »

canistr wrote: post #37

"In order to best serve our retail merchants and learn about React Native in a physical retail setting, we decided to build out the new POS natively for iOS and use React Native for Android." Unbelievable, really. The previous paragraph literally mentions the importance of performance. facepalm

Why do they use RN for Android but not for iOS?

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#126

Post by sergiotapia »

We're moving away from react native at Papa. Too brittle, too cumborsome to iterate with, feels slow and every build required a prayer and small sacrifice to Cthulhu.

We're using Ionic 4 now with capacitor, the dev workflow is much better, literally testing on the browser with autoreloads when code changes. Couldn't be simpler. So far I like it a lot. We're using React so it's just like writing a SPA, only Ionic has a ton of UI elements out of the box like tab navigation.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#127

Post by baron816 »

anon9001 wrote: post #76

Shopify is right to use React Native. I build an app with React Native Web and we produce Android/iOS/web from the same code base with 3 developers. No, it's not perfect. Yes, JS can be awkward and confusing. Yes, a truly native app built by expert platform-specific developers would be better. But I'm able to ship this product with less than half the team size I would need for native development. JavaScript developer…

> JS can be awkward and confusing.

> JavaScript developers are cheap to hire

There’s your problem. Go hire JS devs that know what they’re doing.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#128

Post by draw_down »

secondo wrote: post #10

Arguably the biggest concern with React Native is that it is controlled by a single entity, Facebook, and that they are not one of the leading mobile platforms who from a business perspective have strong incentives to ensure the future of their respective app eco systems. Facebook's incentives with React Native are somewhat unclear. This is a big, yet often unspoken, reason companies are vary of depending on React Na…

It is interesting that React's detractors have seemingly abandoned technical arguments, and now it's all about how evil Facebook is. A while back, the argument was about how the license for React was scary and evil and they would steal all your patents, but they changed the license. So now I guess it has to be just FB = evil

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#129

Post by LeoNatan25 »

ziftface wrote: post #44
gargs wrote: post #34

Translation: we don’t see mobile experiences driving our growth.

Why is that an equivalent statement?

If mobile was important enough for them, they would have invested in proper mobile development. Clearly it is not.

Re: Building all of our new mobile apps using React Native

#130

Post by npo9 »

wdb wrote: post #113
anon9001 wrote: post #76

Shopify is right to use React Native. I build an app with React Native Web and we produce Android/iOS/web from the same code base with 3 developers. No, it's not perfect. Yes, JS can be awkward and confusing. Yes, a truly native app built by expert platform-specific developers would be better. But I'm able to ship this product with less than half the team size I would need for native development. JavaScript developer…

Don't know last time I tried React Native and wanted to use some cool feature of iOS. I either had to write my own RN plugin in Swift/ObjC or wait for someone else to do it.

You say that like writing plugins is hard or undesirable.
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