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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

#571

Post by xeonoex »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #565
xeonoex wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It emulates the UI, so the fake is noticeable, and it will be hard for them to maintain perfect 1:1. I don't think 'emulate' is the right word. It renders it's UI. I don't get 'how the fake is noticeable'. It might be a little bit different, but the average person won't pick it up. To me, this is one of it's big upsides. It doesn't have to do all the translation to native. The performance is good. It's easy to writ…

It renders a UI similar to the native UI by mimicking it, it emulates it. It meets every meaning of the word. It's a different approach than RN, but in my opinion, it's flawed. This isn't anything new in the desktop realm at least. QT vs wxWidgets. QT renders it's own UI, which is great if you are going for your own look, same with Flutter. wxWidgets and RN both shine by being able to wrap the native platform and bri…

Emulate has another meaning in the technology world too though, so it might be confusing.

RN has to keep the bridge up to date with best practices/deprecation, etc... so that seems like a bigger risk if support was lost. Xamarin did the same and had it's fair share of issues. I'd rather use something with it's own rendering engine. Way less 'magic' that can break.

I don't like coding React/HTML/JS/CSS. It's way easier to write UIs in Flutter IMO. And honestly, I don't even like the aesthetic of native iOS either. I prefer material. I see why web devs would prefer RN though, so there's obviously a huge need for it.

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

#572

Post by ryantriangles »

jakub_g wrote: post #374
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…

Monetization. Native apps provide app & in-app purchases seamlessly integrated in the platform. Web payment solutions are clumsy in comparison. Sure, there are new APIs that ask for CC number, holder etc. to be prefilled but the friction is still not at the same level IMO. You need to pay the cut to Apple/Google but in certain scenarios it's preferable than asking for payment details.

Is there a difference now? Websites in Safari ask me to pay with an Apple ID popup that takes my fingerprint and charges me exactly the same way apps do, I don't see any difference in how it appears or is handled.

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

#573

Post by ryanwaggoner »

saurik wrote: post #548
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really interested in tracking down who is responsible for what. My point is that literally every single time someone comes along claiming that their hybrid framework or app is indistinguishable from native and I go check it out, it’s obvious within 30 seconds that it’s a poor substitute.

We are in a conversation about the future, most of which seems to be being held back by players who have a vested interest in keeping people using native apps; so while you might have the "we are already there" conversation a lot, your knee jerk response doesn't really have a place here.

My response wasn’t knee jerk. I went and downloaded the app in question and played with it. I disagree that the main reason we haven’t gotten to a better place is vested interests. The “write once, deploy anywhere” fantasy has been going on for thirty years now. It’s not that it doesn’t work at all, of course it does. But it comes with many downsides vs software written with one platform in mind, and that’s unlikely to ever change.

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

#574

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

Androider wrote: post #109
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #80

I wonder if Shopify did their homework and looked at Flutter. Flutter seems to meet their objectives more than React Native does. And as an added bonus, Flutter is easier to reason about, has edit and continue, and is more performant. Perhaps the use of Dart instead of Javascript was a deal killer though?

It would be pants-on-head insane for a company like Shopify to go all-in on Flutter. Is Flutter going to be around 10 years from now? Can Shopify support Flutter on their own if nobody else is using it 10 years from now? I don't mean that technically the license would allow them to, but can they in practice field the manpower and skills to do so across all the platforms they need.

Alibaba, Google, Tencent, Capitol One, Square, Baidu, New York Times, and many other large companies have projects on Flutter.

And that's not counting the small startups. There are countless ones of those too.

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

#577

Post by rbrtl »

bsaul wrote: post #506
rbrtl wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think perhaps your business model isn't as solid as you might think. Producing an app is not a free pass to live on the revenue, and the market capture is an important part. I'm not an app developer, I'm in the music industry (day job in IT infra), but it seems to me there are some people projecting their bad business sense onto Apple. As per my other comment in this thread, and the reply someone made for me, the c…

I don’t understand your comment. I have other sources of revenue, mainly doing development for customers. I didn’t bet everything on that app and raised money on the expectation this would be a gold mine. I’m just stating a fact : without those 30%, in my present situation, i could live only based on this app revenues. With the 30% cut, i can’t.

I understand, I was inferring some blame on Apple's part from your commentary -- as though they were denying you a living from your app. Anyway, thanks for the discussion. Probably shouldn't necro this thread any more than I have :)

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

#578

Post by cecja »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #540
paulryanrogers wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is WeChat an example of React Native?

I don't think so, but WeChat hosts so called mini programs that are implemented using Web(ish) technologies. There's a million of those mini programs with 750 million monthly active users. So it's an example of successful mobile Web apps if you will.

These are mostly primitive text based applications I don't know what you are trying to say but this is not a good example for Webapps that work like their native counterparts at all.

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

#579

Post by buboard »

scottmotte wrote: post #446
buboard wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its true that tons of news sites ask for permission just to spam you, or outright sell notifications to advertisers. I think the web notif channel has already been abused beyond repair. It may be time to redo the concept from scratch Killer feature for email: add an email header that turns an email to notification. Then email apps would push the notification to the user, bypassing apple’s block. Websites already have…

That's a novel thought. I imagine then the native mail apps would expand in settings in order to block some bad senders from abusing that email header. Tangentially related, iOS mail app has a VIP setting. [1] https://support.apple.com/lv-lv/HT207213#vip

The apps don’t even need to think of spam, that would be handled by the mail server just like all other spam.

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

#580

Post by zepto »

bsaul wrote: post #542
scarface74 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure most people could live off of less revenue if they didn’t have any expenses. But, a niche product where people aren’t willing to spend money is a business model problem.

That's one way to look at it. All businesses come down to balancing income with expenses indeed. All i'm saying is that 30% cut on the income by apple makes it harder , and sometimes impossible , for some business model to survive.

This raises the question ‘harder than what’?

The services provided by the App Store would have to be present for the business exist at all.

So without the 30% Apple charges those businesses would certainly not survive unless they paid someone else for the services.

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