using React Native you end up having to drop into native code to do anything interesting or optimized, so it feels kind of pointless to not just use the platforms directly
Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
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Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#12Dropping React and going back to raw JavaScript next?
I am still mourning pre-React GitHub. Maybe rose-tinted glasses, but it was so pleasant to use
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#13A side effect of perceived LLM Generated code is now easier to just make it write native I guess.
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#14Major loss for react native community at large with Skia and Flashlist dying. :(
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#15We don’t hold on to a decision just because it was successful at the time. When a core assumption changes, we’re willing to go back and ask whether it’s still the right call. LLMs changed one of the core assumptions behind our 2020 decision, so we reevaluated our mobile stack from first principles. What we found led us back to native.
I suspect we'll see a lot of large orgs doing this in the next year.
Perhaps. I can absolutely see that being more attractive especially with things like the Duo where, I assume, SwiftUI gives you a number of things "for free".
That said, the massive downsides to native are:
- App Store Review time, this used to be hours to 1-2 days, now it can take a week or more
- In the same vein, you can do updates without waiting on native when using web technologies to build your app. We can go from a bug in the field to a fix in - Cross-platform, yes LLMs mean you can create a native iOS and Android app but you have to keep those in sync to say nothing of web (if you want to offer a web app as well)
- Like the point above: Web, if you want to support web, why not get the other platform for cheaper (shared logic)
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#16[deleted]
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#17Their reasoning makes sense. I'd love to read a follow-up and their thoughts in half a year.
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#18Native. Metal. Remove the abatraction layers
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#19… from React “Native”
Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin
#20We don’t hold on to a decision just because it was successful at the time. When a core assumption changes, we’re willing to go back and ask whether it’s still the right call. LLMs changed one of the core assumptions behind our 2020 decision, so we reevaluated our mobile stack from first principles. What we found led us back to native.
I suspect we'll see a lot of large orgs doing this in the next year.
I’m surprised we aren’t seeing it more already. LLMs suddenly make it reasonable to maintain multiple native apps. I’d love to see this start to supplant Electron and its ilk on the desktop.