Seamless Transitions: From Native to React Native

This blog post explores some lesser-known capabilities and benefits of React Native for businesses transitioning or considering transitioning their native apps to this platform. While there are many compelling reasons to switch to React Native—such as the difficulty and expense of maintaining separate teams for iOS and Android—one of the most significant is that: React Native is still native. This post will demonstrate how to leverage this advantage during a transition, ensuring that users don’t need to download a new app, remain logged in throughout the conversion, and retain their locally saved data for a seamless experience.

What is React Native and Who is Using It?

React Native, developed by Meta, allows developers to use a single codebase to create apps that run on both iOS and Android. Using TypeScript and React, it’s accessible to a large pool of developers already familiar with these technologies, and allows mobile and web teams to work more collaboratively. As a result, businesses can accelerate their development cycles, ship features consistently across platforms, reduce costs, and share code. It’s seen enormous popularity across all types of businesses. I highly encourage you to look at the list of apps that use React Native here: https://evanbacon.dev/blog/expo-2024 and https://reactnative.dev/showcase.

The Benefits of Going (React) Native

For businesses that already have native apps, but perhaps don’t yet support both the iOS and Android platforms or don’t want to staff another mobile team, transitioning to React Native can be a great fit for delivering multi-platform applications. And again, one of the best parts is that React Native is still native. It’s not a “web-view”, it’s not a canvas renderer, it’s not HTML. It renders the actual native primitive components per each platform. You can still access haptics, Face ID, push notifications, Live Activities and more, and I encourage you to learn a bit more by checking out React Native Core Components or our latest blog post.

The reason why it’s important to keep saying that React Native is native; it means we can still access the same platform APIs and data of the existing native app while transitioning (provided the Application ID or Bundle ID remains the same) that can help deliver the best experience for the user. No one likes having to download a new app, no one likes being signed out, and no one likes losing their curated data, so being able to transition all of this is a huge win for your existing users. When switching to React Native, you can accomplish all of the above.

Authentication Example

Let’s go through an authentication example. If your application persists to the device or the keychain some kind of authentication mechanism — like a token — you can expose that token to your React Native application and use it to sign your user in and keep them signed in going forward, and that way they would remain logged in as their application transitions to the React Native one.

Locally Persisted Data Example

In terms of transitioning locally persisted user data, let’s use an example. Imagine you had a recipe application where users could favourite and save recipes locally. They might even use some native 3rd party caching or database library to do so. Like the authentication example, it’s possible write a module that would be able to access and migrate this data to React Native, where you can then decide what you’d like to do with it and where you’d like to store it (if anywhere different).

No Need to Download a New App

And by keeping the application and bundle ID of the application the same, users won’t even have to download a new app from the app stores. When they update their app, they’ll receive the React Native version, with their data and authentication in tact.

Embracing React Native can significantly reduce development costs and complexity, allowing your team to focus on innovation and growth. As you consider this transition, remember that React Native is not just a cross-platform solution—it's a bridge that connects the best of both worlds, providing a unified and robust user experience.

If you would like to learn more or make the switch to React Native, reach out to our team.