React Native 0.61 is released for the developers with a new & robust feature known as Fast Refresh. It is a big relief to the React Native community’s biggest pain points that is broken “hot reloading” feature. Here in this blog, we will discuss its impact on the developers and App development company services as a whole.
Introduction to Cross-platform App Development
In the initial stages of the cross-platform app era, developers had to deal with conventional approaches like Native technology to build native-like hybrid apps. The Code needs to be written separately for each and every platform. For example, a developer has to write an app for iOS and Android OS both; they had to perform all tasks from scratch for app development. React Native platform has introduced WORA (Write Once Run Everywhere) feature to allow developers to stay out of this problem.
What is React Native?
Developed and maintained by Facebook, this development platform has gained immense popularity among the enterprises because of its native features and innovative functionality. But it is important to know that React Native has also some limitations that impact the React Native App Development performance at times. Let’s make a list of some of the most prevalent issues of React Native.
• When it is about to React Native upgrade to another version, the process is quite complicated and needs a lot of time. If you have not installed any sort of updates and look to complete the process at once, then it is a time-consuming activity.
• React Native comprise of a stack trace in the Chrome debugger. It is a time-consuming debugging and feature like DidCatch also does not provide many benefits. In such a situation, the developers experience difficulty finding the main reason for any exception in the mobile app.
• Hot reload is a popular feature of this framework. But, it failed to work as per the expectations with Stateless Functional Components. Thankfully, with the introduction of React Native 0.61 version, this issue is fixed. It has made it easier to reload the code without reloading the whole app.
• React Native apps crash multiple times, and the user is completely unaware of the reason for the crash.
• The development services can enjoy success if the RAM bundle of React Native supports OTA platforms including CodePush. This issue is because of the lack of a widely connected developer community.
React Native 0.61 version is introduced to address these persistent issues. For example, with the introduction of this version, the enterprises can hire mobile app developers to avail of this Fast Refresh feature which is the unified version of the “live reloading” and “hot reloading” features to address the ‘Hot Reload” issue.
Here are some vital new developments in React Native 0.61 versions:
1. The useWindowDimensions Hook
React Native 0.61 is released with useWindowDimensions, basically a new hook that can be used by the developers rather than the Dimensions API. The hook feature will let the developer to automatically provide and subscribe to the window dimension updates.
2. Improved CocoaPods compatibility support
CocoaPods were integrated as a default feature in the React Native 0.60, resulting in broken builds using the framework. This major issue has been corrected in the latest released React Native 0.61.
3. Fast Refresh
The hot reloading feature allows app update easily because the updated files can be refreshed without losing the app state. A developer knows that live reloading refreshes the whole app when a file changes, while hot reloading only refreshes the changed files. Together these two features are excellent to debug app as it reloads the whole app in the runtime.
This is a great feature but developers are not satisfied as it is not reliable with function components. Major issues are screen would not get updated, as well as typos and other errors get missed. For any Mobile App testing company, this is a huge concern because it would take additional effort to perform repeated testing and coding before the app launch.
That’s why with the release of React Native 0.61 a new functionality named Fast Refresh is integrated, which combines live reloading with hot reloading. The reason for Fast Refresh popularity is it gives complete support for function components. The hooks can also recover easily from the typos and mistakes and above all, it does not perform invasive code transformations.
Apps developed in React Native are easy to manage, customize & handle because the Fast Refresh feature is enabled by default, though if app developers don’t want it they can disable it with the Dev Menu.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How create app with React Native?
It’s an easy way to build a React Native app, and it’s the most popular means if you’ve just started. You can run and test your application on a mobile device without any configuration.
2. Is react native a hybrid app?
Actually React Native is neither native nor hybrid. A React Native app is an actual mobile app. With React Native you can build a real mobile app that’s indistinguishable from an app built using Java or Kotlin. React Native uses the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps.
3. What is the cross-platform app development?
Earlier developer has to write a code multiple times to build a mobile app for different platforms. With the introduction of Cross-platform feature a developer can implement the WORA technique it means a single code can be used for different platforms.
4. What is the cost of mobile app development?
The cost of the app development completely depends on the features need to be integrated and the platform it is based.
Wrapping Up
React Native is a perfect and complete game-changer framework for mobile app development. The functionality offers for cross-platform app development is unmatchable. It has some limitations which were discussed earlier but with React Native 0.61 release it saves a lot of operational cost and time of the iBeacon app development service. However, the framework is in the transformation stage, still, it has extensive community support to address all its bugs and errors. Hopefully, in the coming days, some major changes will also be released to boost the app development process for users.
