React Native - One Solution for Two Mobile Platforms
Unveiling React Native and how it can save you a wealth of time and money.
For several years now, React Native has been a hot topic in the mobile development world. It's no surprise - it took the tech industry by storm by offering a way to develop mobile applications for both iOS and Android simultaneously.
React Native (also known as RN) is a popular JavaScript-based mobile application platform that allows the creation of natively rendered mobile applications for iOS and Android. The framework enables the development of applications across different platforms using the same codebase.
First released by Facebook as an open-source project in 2015, React Native quickly became one of the go-to solutions for mobile development. It supports some of the world's leading mobile applications, including Instagram, Facebook, and Skype. We'll delve into these and other examples of React Native-supported apps later in this post.
Several factors contribute to the global success of React Native.
Firstly, React Native enables companies to write code once and deploy it for both their iOS and Android apps. This translates into significant savings in time and resources.
Secondly, React Native is built upon React - a JavaScript library that was already extremely popular when the mobile platform was released. We'll explore the differences between React and React Native further in this section.
The History of React Native
When Facebook first decided to make its service accessible on mobile devices, instead of creating a dedicated app like many other leading tech giants at the time, they opted for launching a mobile web page based on HTML5. However, this decision didn’t stand the test of time, leaving much to be desired in terms of user interface and performance. In fact, in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that “the biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML as opposed to native.”
Shortly after this revelation, in 2013, Facebook developer Jordan Walke made a groundbreaking discovery – he found a way to build UI elements for iOS apps using JavaScript. This sparked excitement and led to a dedicated hackathon to explore how much of mobile development could be achieved using traditional JavaScript web solutions.
Thus, React Native was born. Initially developed for iOS, Facebook quickly extended its support to Android before making the framework public in 2015.
Just three years later, React Native had become the second-largest project on GitHub by contributor count. By 2019, it held a strong position, ranking sixth with more than 9,100 contributors, demonstrating its significant impact and widespread adoption in the tech community.
React vs. React Native
Simply put, React Native is not a "newer" version of React, though it does utilize it.
React (also known as ReactJS) is a library used for building a website's interface. Like React Native, it was also developed by the engineering team at Facebook.
Meanwhile, React Native, building on React, allows developers to use a set of UI components to compile and launch apps for both iOS and Android rapidly.
Both React and React Native employ a mix of JavaScript and the special markup language JSX. However, the syntax used for rendering elements in JSX components differs between React and React Native. Moreover, React involves some HTML and CSS, whereas React Native enables the use of native mobile UI elements.
Therefore, while these two frameworks are related, they serve different purposes. Knowledge of React alone is insufficient for developing mobile applications for iOS and Android. Conversely, familiarity with React Native is ample to create a website on React or leverage React Native Web like Twitter and Uber.
Before we delve into the pros and cons of React Native, let's first explore what cross-platform development entails.
What is Cross-Platform Development?
Cross-platform development is the practice of creating software that is compatible with more than one type of hardware platform. A cross-platform application can function on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, or just on two of them. A notable example of a cross-platform application is a web browser or Adobe Flash, which performs the same function, regardless of the computer or mobile device it is run on.
Cross-platform compatibility is considered the Holy Grail of software development – you can write your code base once and then run it on any platform, unlike software that's initially created for a specific platform. Developers can use tools they are proficient in, such as JavaScript or C#, to build for platforms that are unfamiliar to them. Software owners also find this approach appealing, as it halves product development in terms of time-to-market and costs. What are some characteristics of cross-platform development?
Wider Audience
You don't have to choose which audience to target, i.e., iOS or Android users, as cross-platform software works on both, giving you access to a broader user base.
Platform Consistency
There are some differences in navigation and design between iOS and Android, which are automatically addressed in cross-platform development due to the shared code base. This helps create a uniform brand identity for the app on both platforms with less effort than if it were built natively.
Reusable Code
This is one of the biggest advantages of cross-platform development - you can create just one code base for both Android and iOS simultaneously. Native app development requires separate coding, often needing two different software developers - one for iOS and another for Android.
Faster Development
Since only one code base is needed for both iOS and Android, and everything is in one place, product development happens much faster. Cross-platform apps are treated as individual projects, even though they support different devices, and a large portion of the code can be reused across platforms.
Cost Reduction
Creating cross-platform apps can be up to 30% cheaper than developing native apps, all thanks to code reuse and faster development, directly impacting the cost.
What you've read so far might lead you to believe that cross-platform development is flawless - it's not, as it has some drawbacks. Let's tackle them right now.
Requires More Experience for High Performance
It's a common myth that cross-platform apps perform worse than their native counterparts. For example, both Flutter and React Native aim to operate at 60 frames per second. In most cases, cross-platform apps can perform to the same standards as native apps, provided that developers have sufficient skills and experience.
More Complex Code Design
Since cross-platform apps must respond to various devices and platforms, this complicates coding. This leads to an increased workload for developers, who must include exceptions for different devices and platforms to account for differences, especially when dealing with more complex functions.
Longer Feature Release
Time With each new feature release for Android or iOS, it takes some time to update both applications to support the new feature. Cross-platform apps are quicker to push updates to stores.
As we delve into cross-platform development, let's briefly look at some cross-platform frameworks.
React Native – developed and introduced to the world by Facebook in 2015, it functions much like React but allows for creating apps for both mobile and desktop computers. The beauty of this is that you can write code in JavaScript without needing to learn any specific programming languages required by the platform, such as Java, Swift, or Objective-C. React Native is focused on creating an excellent user interface for mobile devices, making it a suitable option for apps requiring quick responsiveness and intuitive use.
Flutter – released by Google in 2017, it's not just for cross-platform mobile device development. Flutter is perfect for experimenting with new features and fixing minor bugs thanks to its hot reload feature. This allows developers to instantly see the changes made by the latest updates, without needing to restart the application after editing the source code.
Xamarin – developed by Microsoft, this open-source solution allows for sharing 75-90% of code across different systems. It's written in C#, requiring developers to be knowledgeable in the language – though it's more stable, it's also harder to master than JavaScript. Interestingly, in recent years, Microsoft itself has shifted towards React Native. As of 2019, there were 38 Microsoft corporate iOS and Android applications that utilized React Native.
How Does React Native Work?
Now that we've delved into cross-platform development, let's explore the mechanics of React Native and how it stands apart from everything we've seen before.
Don't worry if you're not a technical expert – we'll explain this in layman's terms.
As mentioned earlier, React Native is written using a mix of JavaScript and JSX, a special markup code similar to XML. The platform can interact with both JavaScript-based realms and existing native application threads.
How does this communication work? React Native utilizes what's known as a "bridge." While JavaScript and native threads are written in entirely different languages, it's the bridge's function that facilitates two-way communication.
This means that if you already have a native app for iOS or Android, you can still use its components or transition to development with React Native.
What Makes React Native Unique?
The difference between React Native and other cross-platform development solutions (such as Cordova and PhoneGap) is that React Native doesn’t render WebView in its code. Instead, it operates on real, native views and components. This is one of the reasons behind the impressive success of React Native.
Benefits of React Native
Let's delve into the advantages of React Native development and explain why it's a compelling choice for creating your mobile app.
Code Reusability – Cross-Platform Development
The ability to reuse code stands as React Native's greatest benefit, indicating that applications can operate effectively across multiple platforms, a feature highly valued by CEOs and product owners. They can integrate 90% of the native framework for reusing code for both operating systems.
Another piece of good news is that web application code can be utilized for developing mobile apps if they both leverage React Native. This also accelerates development time, thanks to the inclusion of pre-developed components available in the open-source library.
Vast Developer Community
React Native is an open-source JavaScript platform that encourages developers to contribute to the framework's development, available for everyone.
Should any developer encounter an issue while developing an app, they can seek support from the community (as of mid-2020, around 50,000 active React Native tag contributors on Stack Overflow).
There will always be someone to help them address their issues - this also positively impacts programming skill enhancement.
Economic Efficiency
Another advantage of React Native development is its greater cost-effectiveness. As previously mentioned, this is because developers can use the same code to build applications for iOS and Android.
This means you don't need to hire two separate developer teams for iOS and Android to complete your project. A small team is sufficient. The cost of developing applications in React Native is significantly lower than for applications developed using languages that do not support cross-platform development.
Rapid Updates
Rapid updates allow developers to launch the app by updating it to new versions and altering the user interface. Changes are visible immediately, freeing the developer from the need to rebuild the entire application.
This leads to two significant benefits: time-saving – as programmers save time on compilation and enhance productivity – since they don’t lose any state when making changes to the app.
Simplified User Interface
Development with React Native employs React JavaScript to create the app's interface, making it more responsive and faster with reduced loading time, ultimately enhancing user interaction. Thanks to its reactive user interface and component-based approach, the framework is perfectly suited for apps with both simple and complex designs.
Fast Apps
Some argue that React's machine code could negatively impact app performance. While JavaScript might not run as quickly as machine code, this difference is imperceptible to the human eye. To further prove this point, we conducted a test comparing two versions of a simple app, written in React Native and Swift, – both achieved similar performance outcomes.
Promising Future
Given the pace at which the platform has captured the market and its straightforward approach to solving development challenges, the future of React Native for cross-platform apps looks bright. Despite having a few drawbacks, which we'll discuss in the next section, its speed and convenience in development compensate for them.
React Native: Risks and Drawbacks
Here are four main potential drawbacks to be aware of before deciding to develop application with React Native.
Lack of Some Custom Modules
While React Native has been around for several years, some custom modules are either lacking or entirely absent. This might necessitate running three separate codebases (for React Native, iOS, and Android) instead of one.
However, this situation is not the norm. Unless you are developing your application from scratch or trying to hack an existing one, you are unlikely to encounter these issues.
Compatibility and Debugging Issues
Surprisingly, despite being utilized by leading tech companies, React Native is still in a beta-testing phase. Developers might face various compatibility issues with packages or debugging tools. If your developers struggle with React Native's source code, this could negatively impact your development process as they spend considerable time troubleshooting.
Scalability
In most scenarios, React Native will serve you well, even as your application evolves into a complex solution. After all, companies like Facebook and Skype have successfully leveraged this platform for years. Nonetheless, some companies have opted to move away from React Native.
For instance, Airbnb chose to use the framework for its mobile application when the company was still an emerging startup. However, as Airbnb's growth plans evolved, React Native became unsuitable, prompting the company to develop two native applications. With current advancements in RN and the right software architecture choice, scalability issues can be easily avoided.
Need for Native Developers
Remember the "bridge" feature we mentioned earlier in this post? React Native facilitates communication between JavaScript and native mobile code. This means if you hire a developer unfamiliar with native mobile development, integrating native code into the React Native codebase could be challenging. Consequently, you'll need the assistance of Android or iOS developers to aid them in this process. For small companies, hiring mobile developers may not be ideal due to the additional costs involved.
Need Help with Mobile App Development?
React Native is an excellent choice for creating applications that operate smoothly across different platforms and systems. It's a framework that's both loved by companies and developers alike. It offers significant time savings, which speeds up the development process and is also cost-effective. This gives you access to a broader audience immediately - since a single app can be used by both Android and iOS users, launches can be synchronized, and companies with smaller development budgets don't have to choose just one platform.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss specific details about developing a mobile app using React Native or any other technology, feel free to book a free call with our CTO, or leave your contact details on our website.
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