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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

#391

Post by xeonoex »

Thorentis wrote: post #338
xeonoex wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I've tried all of the big SPA frameworks (not specifically react native though) and I decided to use flutter for a non-trivial side project and I don't ever want to touch the big SPA frameworks ever again. Flutter is also fast, pretty lightweight, and good on battery. It feels native on iOS and Android. I have little Android development experience (side project years ago) and no iOS experience. It's easy…

I'm considering using Flutter (instead of Ionic which Ive been using for mobile up till now). In terms of Node breaking when switch platforms - are you syncing the node_modules folder between machines somehow? Don't do that. Doing "npm install" will sometimes install binaries specific to a platform that won't work across them. Put node_modules in your.gitignore, and sync between machines using version control rather…

Yeah, I used git and ignored node_modules. Honestly, most of the problems are related to Windows. Whenever I try to use anything geared towards web dev, there are just more issues on Windows. Tons of dependencies that change all the time doesn't help. Most of the web dev industry is on Linux or Mac. It's not all related to Windows though. Just updating packages/frameworks is scary. Setting up Jekyll was tough, even on WSL. I've opened issues on projects, and they would update the project to say that Windows is not supported (though IDK if node was the issue there). I bought a Macbook solely to deploy iOS apps, but it is way easier to develop anything related to web on it.

Again, this is coming from someone who doesn't do web dev full time, so I'd probably resolve issues faster if I did, but for my side projects, it's too much maintenance. I just want to be productive if I have an hour or so a day. Flutter lets me do that. I write code, code runs on Android and iOS. It's easy. No react/vue/angular, webpack, bootstrap, scss, typescript definition files, or other 'magic' to worry about.

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

#392

Post by phreack »

avip wrote: post #118
xyby wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For iOS, can't you just wrap your web application in a thin native app layer that provides the push functionality?

You can, you just can't publish it on the appstore.

How do you distribute it in that case? Outside of enterprise apps, which are not allowed to be public.

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

#393

Post by rbrtl »

bsaul wrote: post #369
scarface74 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the money being made on the App Store is for in app consumables from pay to win games. You’ll have to forgive me for not shedding a tear for them. I hope Apple Arcade takes a huge chunk of their revenue. It’s not indy developers trying to make a living. The other types of apps that use to make Apple a lot of money are streaming services. But most of those are now not allowing you to do in app purchases. I’m l…

As a developer of a pro app in a niche market trying to make a living on the app store, i can tell you those 30% are what prevents me from working full time on my app.

Could you elaborate on this a little? I understand that Apple only takes 30% the first year and then they drop their commission to 15%. Is the commission on the purchase price of the app what makes it too expensive, or is it too great a cut out of your in app revenue?

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

#394

Post by phreack »

anderspitman wrote: post #363
DevoAKA wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use polling or sockets when the browser is open; the problem is showing those notifications on the phone's lock screen or when you're in another app.

Oh duh. And it sounds like iOS doesn't support that for PWAs yet?

Correct, many websites say that such support is "coming soon" but I've been hearing that for years now.

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

#395

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

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…

I really like the idea of PWAs, but I've tried a few of them and I always come away being annoyed at the app launch latency. They still feel like they're hitting a remote server when starting up for.... something? My uneducated hunch is that they're over-zealously checking their server for updates.

The other issue I have with their implementation is the opaqueness of how offline caching works. How much space do apps get? When does the offline cache get invalidated? I care about that because of that terrible launch latency.

I think these issues can be attributed to PWAs being second-class citizens in Android and iOS.

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

#396

Post by marriedWpt »

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…

As someone who refuses to give any money to Apple, this is my goal.

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

#397

Post by iudqnolq »

distances wrote: post #134
wpietri wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't tried it on iOS, but Twitter's web app is quite good on Android/Firefox and Android/Chrome. Not quite as good as native, and prone to developing lag if I don't occasionally restart the browser. But surprisingly good. They talk about the process of building it here: https://blog.twitter.com/engineering/en_us/topics/open-sourc...

It's unusable on Firefox Focus though. Trying to expand anything completely breaks scrolling on the page.

No just focus. And I've run into issues even if I don't expand anything. Around 40% of pages have a point below which I can't scroll (I'm jumped to the top of the page if I try). And then there's the unspecified error you get on around 60% of page loads that requires a refresh to fix.

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

#399

Post by dessant »

rbrtl wrote: post #389
dessant wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though we should shed some tears for those who just try to sell their apps and make a living, after already being ripped off for expensive equipment and an annual developer account fee. If Apple would care, it would be possible to charge a smaller commission based on the app category, and to vaive annual developer account fees for verified open source developers.

Apple gear is no longer as comparatively expensive as it used to be -- they aren't ripping you off, they have put a lot of work into delivering different 'gear' to what's available in the rest of the market. Shed a tear for people who buy HP and need a new laptop every year or two. I'm typing this on a 7-year old MacBook Pro, which works better than the day I bought it. Hosting an app marketplace is not a free endeav…

> Apple gear is no longer as comparatively expensive as it used to be

It still is if one can't afford it. Apple could provide macOS and iOS VirtualBox images for developers to build and test their apps.

> why complicate their business model to give themselves more work for less money.

Because that's the right thing to do when you shut out indie developers using expensive equipment and annual developer fees.

Developers who aren't affluent or don't get into app development solely for profit may stay away from the Apple ecosystem, and that's a loss for everyone.

Apple is now also selling access to their user base on macOS. Apps distributed outside the Mac App Store must be notarized to run on macOS, which requires a developer account ($99/yr). Yes, workarounds do exist for now, but all of them are inconvenient enough that they seriously hurt the distribution of open source apps, unless maintainers pay up.

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

#400

Post by gumby »

koheripbal wrote: post #243
divbzero wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago Facebook fought this battle and lost. [1] [2] [3] [1]: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/using-ht... "Using HTML5 Today" [2]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/11/facebook_admits_h... "Facebook admits HTML5 not competitive with Cocoa Touch" [3]: https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/facebook-android-faster/ "Facebook Speeds Up Android App By Ditching HTML5 And Rebuilding It Natively…

It strikes me that, more than anything, it is the lack of an efficient "Add to Home Screen" flow, that has doomed mobile websites. ...and it's intentional. By having an app store, mobile OS distributors know that they have control over a massive revenue stream.

> more than anything, it is the lack of an efficient "Add to Home Screen" flow, that has doomed mobile websites...and it's intentional

It’s literally a default option on the safari “share” button: “Add to Home Screen”. I’m not sure how Apple could have made it easier.

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