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React Native for Android

code.facebook.com

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Re: React Native for Android

#81

Post by vjeux »

mbrock wrote: post #64
Kwastie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An app built with React Native is indistinguishable from a "real" native app, unlike cordova apps it doesn't run in the browser (or in a webview).

That's not categorically true. For example, I believe that both the navigator components for React Native in iOS currently suffer from either bugs or performance issues. The more native one has an open issue related to UI flicker, and the JavaScript-based one drops frames when subviews are complex. That statement might not be true tomorrow or next week, because the ecosystem is developing quickly. Generally I am very…

Yup, being indistinguishable from native has been the absolute priority for the project. We think we managed to do it for the apps we built but we took shortcuts in the process. The two open source versions of navigator definitely don't meet that promise and it is driving me crazy. We're working on solutions for those but it takes time :)

Re: React Native for Android

#82

Post by myko »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #62

really excited to dig into this, though i don't know much javascript or React. I'm curious to see how material design comes across in these types of apps and how easily it will be to tell apart a native app and the "react" version.

Yeah, it's a bit unfortunate the 'Facebook Ads' app does not appear to use Material conventions like ripples or a pretty transition when the FAB is pressed.

I hope support for, well, the Android support library is in the works! Android apps without Material flourishes are starting to look out of place.

Re: React Native for Android

#83

Post by matthewmacleod »

loceng wrote: post #54

Are any businesses avoiding using React because of the power it gives Facebook - where they can sue you however if they infringe on your copyright or patents or other then you can't sue them because you'll lose the license to use React - along anything else they've released? You can say it is a fair practice for a private company, however I am wondering what business operations and founders are thinking.

This is no longer true. It was at one point, but Facebook have since amended their patent grant as a result of public pressure.

Re: React Native for Android

#84

Post by misiti3780 »

msoad wrote: post #65
jbigelow76 wrote: post #35

Question for everybody doing some sort of cross platform mobile dev. How common is it to have NO experience with a platform's native libraries? In other words you didn't go from ObjC or Java to React Native/Cordova/Xamarin to try and re-use code but because you know JS or C# and weren't concerned about learning the native platform. For any that started out with no native platform knowledge did you start to dip into i…

To my experience if all your apps do is showing tables of information and forms to put the information back in (classic WinForms app) any of the cross-platform stuff will work for you. Obviously React is rendering in native and I would prefer it. But if your app is more advanced like a drawing app you should not use these cross platform stuff.

or for iOS, any type of advanced animations. i like the idea of these platforms but if you building a mobile only app (like instagram when it launched) i cant imagine starting off with cross-platform tech stacks

Re: React Native for Android

#85

Post by jbigelow76 »

cbsmith wrote: post #61
o_____________o wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Cordova, you will always be behind any and all Mobile Safari WebKit et al bugs. This not a big deal when pushing layout around a webpage, but it can be crippling for app development as the app grows in complexity and you crave native-quality interactions. Mobile Safari's Webkit implementation has a staggering list of severe bugs. Developing under it can become a nightmare of hacks and backpedaling. Been working…

More accurately: with Cordova, you will always be behind on iOS.

I don't know about React Native, but Telerik's open source project NativeScript promises to always have 0 day support of all native platform features since it's reflecting over the native platform's libraries to expose to its own API.

React Native and NativeScript seem to have all the upside of Cordova (transference of web dev skills to native platforms) with none of the downsides (lag in new OS feature implementation, webview wrapped apps), I wonder if Cordova's days of relevance are numbered.

Re: React Native for Android

#86

Post by myko »

aianus wrote: post #57
jbigelow76 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple probably doesn't concern itself with any developers that don't want to be on their platform. In fact they probably find the notion so inconceivable that they wouldn't see any value in that developer's app. Are there any "unicorn" apps that are Android only and intend to stay that way?

> Are there any "unicorn" apps that are Android only and intend to stay that way? Chrome? Also Gmail, Google Now, and Facebook Messenger on iOS are garbage compared to Android.

Chrome is available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/chrome/id15979771

It's just stuck being the Chrome around UIWebView instead of fully featured Chrome, which is unfortunate.

Re: React Native for Android

#87

Post by lewisl9029 »

cbsmith wrote: post #61
o_____________o wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Cordova, you will always be behind any and all Mobile Safari WebKit et al bugs. This not a big deal when pushing layout around a webpage, but it can be crippling for app development as the app grows in complexity and you crave native-quality interactions. Mobile Safari's Webkit implementation has a staggering list of severe bugs. Developing under it can become a nightmare of hacks and backpedaling. Been working…

More accurately: with Cordova, you will always be behind on iOS.

Speaking as a web developer, this is sad, but true.

However, what's even sadder to me is the fact this continues to be true despite the fact that, believe it or not, the web has been the platform where most of the innovation in UI development paradigms has been taking place in the past few years. And I don't just mean in terms of the sheer number of new things coming out.

The web community pioneered UI development paradigms involving functional programming techniques and immutable data, and have brought its benefits to other platforms (through projects like React Native). I personally would never want to go back to the old way of building UIs. And I suspect I'll feel the same way about client-centric data fetching when I get to try out Relay/GraphQL, Falcor, Om Next, etc in production.

I really want Firefox OS to be successful for this exact reason. I don't want to have to make compromises between the best experience for my users and the best experience for myself as a developer. With a platform that makes web the native UI technology, we shouldn't have to make this compromise in theory, but Firefox OS's execution thus far has left much to be desired.

Re: React Native for Android

#89

Post by kcorbitt »

I have a fair amount of experience developing native Android apps in Java, and have an app for work that I'm developing/maintaining right now. I've also used React in a couple of medium-sized web apps.

I'm extremely excited about the possibility of developing future functionality for our Android app using React Native. It's not about the language (I find using dynamically typed languages for large systems frustrating, despite how expressive they can be) or even the iOS/web reusability for me -- it's the fact that the React way of seeing the world just makes so much sense. Describing views as a (pure, as long as you're careful) function of state feels so clean to me.

Re: React Native for Android

#90

Post by myko »

low_battery wrote: post #19
jbob2000 wrote: post #9

Yes! I've been working with React-Native on a side project for a few weeks now. WHAT A GODSEND! Before this, I was using Titanium, which is heavy, slow, and difficult to integrate with. React-Native felt like home. On a related note; Why is it up to Facebook to develop something like this? Why aren't Apple and Google making it this easy to develop apps? ObjC is a nightmare, 90% of apps out there don't need that level…

Google is working on it: https://github.com/domokit/sky_engine and https://github.com/dart-lang/fletch

This looks like more of a side project than something Google is going to put its weight behind. I am pretty excited for Fletch though - I hope it turns into something like React Native, which would be much improved using Dart and Dart tools instead of JavaScript IMO.

Right now Fletch looks pretty awkward/painful to use though. Writing views completely natively (ObjC/Swift/Java) and then calling into a DartVM for business logic doesn't sound like a fun way to develop to me. I could be wrong, I haven't tried to use Fletch - just read some examples, but right now I don't see the benefit.

Sky is basically Cordova as far as I can tell. It dumps native looking views into a webview and calls it a day. The demo app on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.domokit.sk...) does not make me terribly excited for it :(

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