React Native and its features,There is a confusion among many people about React Native, that if you make a mobile app by writing code with JavaScript, it will actually work like a real app, that too on both Android and iOS platforms. This short post is to clear this confusion.
Mobile applications are already becoming an important part of our daily lives. Ordering food, booking movie tickets or connecting virtually with loved ones – there are smartphone apps for everything. In fact, due to technological advancements and mobile applications, everything is now at our fingertips.
There are various mobile application development frameworks in this IT era. By learning how to use them, you can build mobile apps yourself and make a career in the mobile app development domain!
What is mobile application development framework?
Mobile Application Development Framework is a full-featured development factory that provides the basic framework needed to build mobile applications for specific environments. In short, it works as a layout to help in mobile application development.
Some of the various benefits of using a mobile application development framework are time-saving, efficiency, efficiency, etc.
Mobile applications can be mainly divided into 3 categories:
Native applications, Web applications and hybrid applications.
Native Application: Applications that are designed for use on a specific platform or device. Platform can be operating system like Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS.
Web Application: Such applications are designed to deliver webpages to any device and web platform.
Hybrid Applications : A hybrid application is a combination of both native and web applications. It can be developed for any platform from a single codebase.
So,Before moving on to React Native we need to discuss "Views and mobile development". "View" is the basic building block of both Android and iOS platforms. What do we actually mean by "View"? "View" is a small rectangular element on the screen. What we see on the mobile screen is basically "View".
The smallest visual element of an application, such as a line or a button, is also a type of "View". Some views are combinations of many views. So it can be said that no matter how much we go inside, the basic building block is "View".
So now let's come to React Native, IOS, Android. In Android development, you write views in Kotlin or Java; In iOS development you use Swift or Objective-C. In React Native, you invoke these same views through React components using JavaScript.
You don't create anything else. So what actually happened? At runtime, ReactNative creates the corresponding Android and iOS native views for those components.
Because React Native components are supported by the same view on Android and iOS, when you build a React Native app it will have the same look, feel, and performance as a native app. That's why it's so popular despite being crossplatform.
What is React Native?
React Native is one of the most recommended mobile app frameworks in the modern development industry. It is a mobile application development framework in JavaScript to develop apps for various platforms with native user interface elements. But this is not a webview app.
This open source framework developed by Facebook allows you to develop mobile applications for both Android and iOS platforms.
This framework is based on React library and JavaScript. It aims to develop native applications over hybrid applications running on a web-view. Cross platform applications are developed for use on multiple operating systems or devices. The advantage is that you can use the same program whether you are on a Windows PC or log in from a laptop or smartphone.
The main purpose of React Native?
This JavaScript mobile development framework was created by Facebook in 2015 when their mobile applications relied heavily on the HTML markup language.
While working at Facebook, Jordan Walke, the father of ReactJS, found a way to create the user interface (UI) elements for iOS from JavaScript threads that served as the foundation of React.
Facebook released React Native in January 2015 at the React.js conference. It was later made open-source. As a result, many developers have worked on versions of it.
React or React Native?
React Native is not a separate version of React, but like ReactDOM is for the web, React Native is a custom renderer for React.
React is a popular JavaScript library used to create a web application's user interface.
The front end of a website can be developed using React's various components. On the other hand, React Native is used to develop apps that are fully compatible with mobile platforms.
Benefits of React Native or why should I use it?
React Native naturally uses React and React-like syntax. But it is a standalone framework that uses native APIs to render code elements specific to smartphone platforms (eg, Android and iOS). It makes application development considerably faster and more efficient than developing the same application separately for different platforms.
React Native is very convenient for both developers and companies.
Code Reusability: This depends on the specific project, but typically 50-90% of React Native's code is easily reusable. Developers can also use web application code written in React to create mobile apps.
Development Speed: Developers can reuse their code resulting in less development time and faster work.
Fast MVP Check: To test MVP(Minimum Viable Product) apps can be brought to market quickly.
Smooth operation: It is time-saving and easy to operate as it is made of robust components.
Easily Variable: Just press “Command+R” for re-building each time.
How does React Native work?
Android as well as iOS mobile platforms both provide APIs (Application Programming Interface) that interact with the native environment. This may involve APIs that render native components or use native technologies (such as GPS or Bluetooth, etc.).
Basically, React Native allows users to use JavaScript (JS) code to call native functions via platform-specific methods.
Whenever you create a button by calling some abstraction like CreateButton (which is done via ReactDom in the background), React Native transfers that instruction to the native platform via a bridge, then calls a JavaScript function on Android to create a button, and simultaneously on iOS. (iOS) has an Objective-C function that creates a native button for it. This principle helps React Native applications to behave and look like a native application.
A prerequisite for development in React Native
Before learning React Native, you need to have a basic idea about:
1. JavaScript is a framework for React Native JavaScript.
2. React - Which is a JavaScript-based library.
3. Redux-JavaScript State Management.
Everything you need to set up the environment on the PC:
1. Code Editor - Visual Studio Code.
2. Backend Runtime – Node.js.
3.Emulator or mobile device to check if your application is running properly or not.
When developing mobile applications, companies prioritize providing fast and good service to the user. React Native's components are pure and side-effect-free functions that return what the view should look like at any given time.
This is why writing state-dependent views is easy since the framework does the work of updating the view when the state changes. Due to React Native's performance, cross platform support and reusable code, many reputed companies including Facebook, Facebook Ads, Walmart, Bloomberg, Instagram, SoundCloud Pulse, Delivery.com, Uber are using React Native in their mobile apps.
Some popular apps built with React Native:
1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. Uber
4. Skype
5. Tesla Motors
6. Pinterest
7. Walmart.etc.
In addition to React, there are some other well-known cross-platform app development frameworks such as: Flutter, Xamarin, NativeScript.
Flutter is a mobile application development framework developed by Google that builds apps for Android and iOS using the Dirt language.
It is still not as popular as React Native. It can be implemented very well in Android applications, but not natively with iOS applications.
Both React Native and NativeScript are JavaScript mobile frameworks and both frameworks are easy to learn for those familiar with JavaScript.
React Native's biggest advantage over NativeScript is its multi-threaded architecture. This feature prevents JavaScript processing from interfering with UI rendering. On the other hand, running processor-intensive JavaScript code can clog the UI of apps built in NativeScript.
Xamarin is a mobile application development framework developed by Microsoft and written in the C# language. It was first published in May 2011.
Both React Native and Xamarin offer near-native performance, both are used by well-known brands, and both have great community support.
The most important difference between these two technologies is the programming language they use. In Xamarin it's C#, and in React Native it's JavaScript. So use whatever language you feel comfortable using.
When not to use React Native?
When developing complex or heavy games that require extensive visualization features, high level customization, substantial user interaction, and lots of work going on in the background, it's best to use native development rather than React Native. In these cases, native development works faster than writing a native wrapper.
Some misconceptions about React Native.
With React Native you can develop one app instead of two:
You still need to develop an app for each platform Android apps and iOS apps have different needs. The advantage of cross platform is that you use one technology instead of two. So you only need one team. If you share most of the code, it's easier to work and the whole process is faster.
With React Native you create hybrid apps:
Hybrid applications built with frameworks like Apache Cordova are WebView applications with access to hardware features. Its components operate natively on a scripting language layer of React Native. Application logic is written in JavaScript.
Limitations of React Native.
-Like other frameworks, React Native has some limitations along with its advantages.
-Some features of Android and iOS apps have to work separately.
-Knowledge of native application development is required if the application has heavy computational operations.
-Dependencies on third-party libraries may cause some security-related issues.
-Slightly less performance than native apps. Because cross platform runs a bit slower than native platform. But most of the time it doesn't affect the user experience.
-React Native uses numerous APIs, third-party libraries, and native components that make the app heavy. To overcome this problem, native libraries optimize, compress images, and convert JSON data to static objective IDs.
-In many cases memory can be consumed while running complex processes in the backend. That's why you need to use the profiling tools in Android Studio or Xcode to identify the cause of memory consumption and the memory consumption runtime.
The future of React Native development.
The big advantage of using React Native is that it helps you build a native application without understanding languages like Objective-C, Java, Kotlin or Swift. So applications can be developed for platforms like iOS, Windows Phone, virtual reality headsets and helmets, and Android.
React Native is a project of Facebook. The React Native team is currently making the library more lightweight by reducing the API surface area, thereby improving application speed.
A JavaScript engine called Hermes is in the works to improve performance on Android. Tech companies like Tesla, Airbnb, Samsung, Wix are working with React Native.
Read more: React.js Javascript framework
According to Google, the React Native framework has grown in popularity over the past three years and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
In today's blog, I tried to tell about React Native and its features. As much as I have written this is only the basic idea of React Native and its features, it has many more features that need to be explained by hand. There are many online courses about it if you want you can do them too.
FAQ
Does React Native mean we no longer need native developers?
No, the need for native developers is not over. Native developer experience is required for running integration services (Bitrise), internal application distribution services (HockeyApp), XCode certificate configuration, etc.
Apart from this, React Native does not easily provide every feature on iOS and Android. Native developers can create a custom module that exposes those features to JavaScript.
Are all React Developers a React Native Developer?
When a react native project is developed, most of the time we write react code which is not different from react code written for the web. But there are some unique properties for mobile platforms that are not in React. So React Developer is not a React Native Developer.
0 Comments