Windows & macOS version 0.63 updates, Hermes, and more
React Native for Windows is now on a 0.63 stable release with React Native core, lighting up some fun new APIs.
React Native for Windows is now on a 0.63 stable release with React Native core, lighting up some fun new APIs.
React Native for Windows released latest stable 0.62.2 with Fast Refresh, RTL support, RedBox and thread safe property storage APIs.
At the end of May 2020, Microsoft wrapped up the annual Build developer conference. React Native was a big theme at Build 2020 this year, with over 6 sessions dedicated to React Native and many tie-ins from other talks.
The biggest announcement from the team is that React Native for macOS is ready for general consumption! Although we announced this on our blog a few weeks ago, the team spent more time deep-diving into how folks can get started building apps for Windows and macOS.
We also announced several 1st and 3rd party applications that are taking advantage of React Native. For example, we showed how the Xbox (Beta) app for PC uses React Native for Windows to create great native experiences for gamers. Additionally, we announced that Facebook was using React Native for Windows and macOS to build Messenger Desktop.
The team held 2 focus groups focused on cross-platform native app development, where the main goal was to understand motivotors, invesments, and challenges that people developing cross-platform applications faced. Below are some key takeaways from these focus groups and Q&A sessions:
Cross-platform developers are looking to share as much code as possible between mobile and desktop apps; however, developers do differentiate between mobile (iOS, Android) and desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux).
React Native continues to gain momentum and is seen as a viable stack due to familiaritiy with React and industry investment; this interest has become so prevalent that enterprise companies are requesting solutions built with React Native by name.
Linux was a common target platform for developers that are looking to target desktop.
Compared to Electron, native-based platforms like React Native were perceived favorably mainly due to better performance.
Developers and designers prefer native apps; platforms like Flutter are gaining in populatority, but not being native is seen as a negative.
React Native isn't just for building mobile apps! Come learn how you can use React Native to build truly native applications that target the entire family of Windows devices, Android, iOS, and Mac!
View the session on YouTube.
With React Native for Windows Plex is able to write once and target a bunch of endpoints with a consistent user experience across each (Android, Windows and even Mac), RN leverages the platform capabilities and inputs that are native to that device.
View the session on the MyBuild website.
Join the React Native team at Microsoft to learn more about building apps that target iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. In this AMA-style experience, we answer your questions about building apps using React Native!
View this session on the MyBuild website.
Learn how the Windows app platform is evolving and unifying Win32 and UWP so your present and future apps can easily target 1 billion+ Windows devices.
View this session on the MyBuild website.
Join Kevin Gallo, corporate vice president of the developer platform for a live Q&A session to talk about the Windows announcements.
View this session on the MyBuild website.
We're excited to announce that the React Native at Microsoft team will be speaking at the React Native EU virtual conference in September!
To register, visit react-native.eu.
Beyond that, we're continuing to iterate and improve the React Native platform for all developers. Follow along on GitHub and Twitter!
We're excited to announce our first preview release aligning with React Native 0.62!
Announcing React Native for Windows v0.61, now on the high performance common core across iOS and Android!
We wrapped up Milestone 3 a month ago which included upgrade to support React Native version 0.60, Native extensions developer story, integration with the new high performance JS engine- Hermes, E2E test infrastructure and a host of added API support. Some detailed highlights from the past few months are shared below.
This document outlines some context and prospective roadmap for React Native for Windows. This project is under active development by the Microsoft Developer Platform team in collaboration with Office, Xbox and other partners as well as the wider React Native community. This roadmap is not meant to be exhaustive or guaranteed since we are also keeping up with the evolving facebook\react-native project and the needs of the React Native community.
Over the past couple of months and spread across several contributors from Microsoft, we have completed Milestone 2 for React Native for Windows. This blog post covers the highlights of the release.