I have been looking at React Native by facebook and the project intrigues me alot. React Native uses the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps. You just put those building blocks together using JavaScript.

I have experience with the ionic framework. With ionic everything is rendered in a webview using Apache Cordova. It works but especially on Android the performance is dreadful. I can already tell you that React Native is a better project in my opinion. The framework and the result is so much better. It makes sense. React Native compiles to native code for the respective OS, Android or iOS. That means there is no performance compromise and the apps built with React Native run just as smoothly as apps built using native tooling.

I still have some seconds thoughts about using other external building blocks with React Native. A lot of times maintainence of said external building blocks becomes a serious problem. The project React Native Material has not been updated for 7 months as an example. Not great. Right now React Native is a little short on features on both iOS and Android. Simple things like navigation features are not complete and lacking in documentation.

My idea is to re-build my app TV Lige Nu! using React Native. I’ve already invested some hours pooking around and already have a crude working app. So this is a little new fun project.