Building an iOS or Android mobile application can be both fun as well as challenging. Luckily today, several frameworks are available which you can use for building your application with minimum challenges. React Native is one such framework that can help, even if you are not a JavaScript wizard.
This Facebook-powered, open-source JavaScript framework helps you develop an application that can run smoothly on both iOS and Android platforms. Right from Fortune 500 companies to new start-ups, thousands of organisations today use React Native to build cross-platform mobile applications. Here are some of the advantages offered:
1 Apps built using React Native are Faster
React Native lets you build Android and iOS mobile apps using JavaScript-based declarative programming models, which results in a cleaner, simpler, and easy to understand code. The framework focuses on building highly responsive and fluid mobile UI because of the asynchronous JavaScript interactions with the native environment, which results in lower app load times in comparison to a typical hybrid app.
2 Reduction in App Load Time Makes All the Difference
Today, performance is one of the key differentiating factors between a popular and unpopular mobile app. Reducing the app load time is the biggest challenge that developers face. But fortunately, this problem is quickly addressed when using React Native. React Native helps developers focus on key areas such as improving memory efficiency, list view scrolling performance, app start-up time, and UI responsiveness and reducing app load time.
3 Real Applications built using React Native
It is virtually impossible to distinguish between an app built using React Native or an app built with Objective-C or Java as the fundamental UI building blocks are the same. All the developer has to do is: put together the building blocks which are reusable “native components”, ensuring consistency in look and feel of the app.
4 Easy to Retain Application State with Hot Reloading Feature
React Native aims to enhance the user experience by providing the tools to enable the developer to focus on reducing the time it takes between saving a file and seeing the changes. The framework achieves this goal with the help of the Hot Reload feature, which works very effectively. This unique feature is available in React Native 0.22, and later versions.
The ‘Hot Reloading’ feature can be enabled by opening the developer menu and tapping on “Enable Hot Reloading.”
This feature keeps the app running while new versions of the files, edited during runtime, are displayed, which allows the state of the application to be retained when you are tweaking the UI.
5 React Native is Compatible with Native Code
The components written in Java, Objective-C, or Swift are compatible with React Native, which makes it easier as the app can be built partly in React Native and partly in native code.
6 Get Automatic Upgrades for your App with React Native
Because of carrying out most of the advancements at the framework-level, you have the assurance that your React Native app will get automatically upgraded once you switch to a more recent version of React Native. React Native automatically refreshes code which accelerates the release of new product features.
7 React Native is a Developers’ Delight
The whole process of developing an application with React Native is fast and seamless. You can reload the app instantly instead of recompiling. Developers often find it easier to work on a React Native app than on a native app.
The Takeaway Message
React Native was introduced in 2013 when Facebook started developing its internal Hackathon project to address the company’s growing demands. Since then React Native has come a long way, becoming one of the most popular frameworks in the market.
In recent years, React Native has grown from strength to strength with an impressive adoption rate without showing any visible signs of slowing down. It is currently, the 14th most popular repository on GitHub. It would not be out of context to mention that React Native is regularly updated, once every two weeks.
Some of the biggest brands using React Native-based applications include Facebook, Instagram, Walmart, Bloomberg, Pinterest, Skype, Tesla, Uber, Adidas, among many others.
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