Platforms - leotm/react-native-template-new-architecture GitHub Wiki

  • [2015mar] React Native iOS: The framework was first announced and open-sourced for iOS at the React.js Conf in March 2015.
  • [2015sep] React Native Android: Official support for Android was released later in the same year, making it a cross-platform solution.
  • [2015] React Native Web 🌍 Began as a project by Nicolas Gallagher to create web apps using React Native components for Twitter's Progressive Web App.
  • [2016] React Native Qt 🚫 This project aimed to use Qt's QML to bring React Native to desktop environments, forked from the unmaintained React Native Ubuntu. GitHub repository activity suggests development around 2016 and 2017.
  • [2016apr] React Native Windows / UWP 🚫 Initial support for Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP) was released by Microsoft in April 2016.
  • [2017] Valence Native 🚫 A community effort to bring the React Native developer experience to desktop apps using native tools instead of a full browser environment. Its repository shows commits dating from 2017.
  • [2017] React Native DOM 🚫 An experimental, alternative web port of React Native, distinct from React Native for Web. Its repository shows commits from 2017.
  • [2018] React Native Turbolinks 🚫 A wrapper for building hybrid apps using Turbolinks 5. The project's first commit on GitHub was in 2018.
  • [2020may] React Native for Windows + macOS 🤝 Microsoft released the first official preview of React Native for Windows and macOS, aligning with the release of React Native 0.62.
  • [2020oct] React Native tvOS 🌍 Community support for tvOS, enabling apps for Apple TV and Android TV, existed by at least October 2020.
  • [2021dec] React Native Skia 🌍 The first alpha version was released, allowing React Native to use the Skia Graphics Engine as a renderer for 2D graphics.
  • [2022jun] Alita 🚫 A React framework for mobile apps based on umi.
  • [2024jan] React Native visionOS 🤝 A dedicated community platform for Apple's visionOS began supporting new command-line interface (CLI) commands, just before the visionOS operating system's official release in February 2024.
  • [2025oct] React Native horizonOS: Meta Horizon OS
  • [2025oct] React Native Vega OS: React Native-powered Linux OS

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React Native iOS [2015mar]

  • iOS SDK and UIKit: RN iOS interacts w native UIKit components for rendering the UI for native look/feel
  • Platform-specific APIs: access iOS-specific APIs/features like ARKit/HealthKit by writing custom native modules in Swift/Objective-C to bridge to JS code
  • Hardware APIs: supports hardware features like cam/GPS/etc, provided via native modules
  • 3rd-party libs: supports integrating ext libs/SDKs via CocoaPods for advanced functionality
  • Flexbox layout: while not a native API itself, the Flexbox-based layout system translates to native UI layout capabilities on iOS, simplifying responsive design
  • Performance tooling: access native perf tools like Xcode Instruments to identify/optimize bottlenecks

React Native Android [2015sep]

  • Android SDK: RN Android renders native Android components for native appearance/perf
  • Platform-specific APIs: access custom native modules written in Java/Kotlin to access Android-specific APIs for advanced or specialized features
  • Hardware APIs: supports hardware features like cam/GPS/etc
  • Edge-to-edge support: Recent RN vers automatically support the edge-to-edge display required by modern Android APIs
  • Predictive back gesture: supports Android 16 predictive back gesture by default w option to customize behavior w BackHandler API
  • Performance tooling: access native perf tools for perf analysis/optimization

React Native Web 🌍 [2015]

  • React DOM: React Native Web is a compatibility layer that renders components using React DOM, which in turn uses standard browser DOM APIs.
  • Standard Web APIs: The platform uses native DOM APIs to implement features, improving in performance and functionality as the web platform evolves.
  • Web-based components: Browser-compatible implementations of core React Native components such as View, Text, Image, and ScrollView are provided.
  • Gestures and interactions: It provides a high-level gesture system and support for various input methods (touch, mouse, keyboard).
  • Accessibility: It supports different devices and input modes by rendering semantic HTML tags for improved accessibility.
  • Web-specific limitations: Some mobile hardware APIs (e.g., accelerometer) are not accessible in the browser, and not all core components are implemented.

React Native for Windows + macOS 🤝 [2020may]

  • Universal Windows Platform (UWP): The Windows implementation provides React Native support for the Windows SDK, allowing the building of native apps for Windows 10 and higher.
  • Cocoa: The macOS implementation uses the Cocoa framework to build native macOS apps.
  • Desktop-specific APIs: Supports platform-specific user experiences like keyboard shortcuts and multi-window handling.
  • Community modules: Relies on a growing list of community-supported modules that target Windows and macOS.
  • Native module integration: Developers can integrate existing native code into their projects.
  • Network info: The NetInfo module supports both Windows and macOS.

React Native tvOS 🌍 [2020oct]

  • Apple TV OS SDK: As a fork of the main React Native repository, it is tailored to support Apple TV features. It shares much of the native code with the iOS platform.
  • Android TV SDK: It is also adapted to run on Android TV devices.
  • Focus management: The library includes specific TV support for handling focus management, which is crucial for remote navigation.
  • Touchables: Provides access to touchable controls adapted for a TV interface.
  • Platform detection: Offers specific Platform APIs, such as Platform.isTVOS, for targeting Apple TV specifically.
  • SDK features: Supports standard TV features while suppressing incompatible APIs like web views or status bars.

React Native Skia 🌍 [2021dec]

  • Skia Graphics Engine: This is the primary API. It provides a graphics engine used by browsers like Chrome and Firefox, and mobile platforms like Android.
  • Declarative API: The recommended approach uses a declarative API as a React Native Renderer.
  • Imperative API (JSI): An imperative API backed by JavaScript Interface (JSI) is also available for library developers.
  • Native Buffers API: An advanced API created with platform-specific GPU APIs (Metal for iOS, OpenGL for Android) for efficient graphics rendering from different data sources.
  • WebGPU (future): Plans are in place to modernize the architecture with a unified WebGPU 3D API to enable advanced graphics libraries like Three.js.
  • 2D graphics: A rich set of APIs for 2D graphics is available, with drawing features completed in the 1.0 release.

React Native visionOS 🤝 [2024jan]

  • visionOS SDK: A dedicated platform for Apple's visionOS that unlocks the full capabilities of the spatial computing SDK.
  • RealityKit: Allows developers to display 3D objects within the immersive environment.
  • ARKit: Exposes APIs for augmented reality experiences.
  • Immersive Spaces: Offers the ability to create and manage immersive spaces and multi-window apps.
  • SwiftUI lifecycle: Uses the SwiftUI lifecycle with @UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor, allowing access to the full visionOS SDK.
  • Hover effect: Provides a custom visionos_hoverEffect prop on View components to manage hover effects.
  • Compatibility mode distinction: Unlike running in a compatibility mode, this platform provides transparent, native-looking UI elements.