Since it was launched by Meta, React Native has transcended to be one of the de facto tools for developers to build cross-platform iOS/Android apps. This JavaScript-based technology enables companies to facilitate mobile app development operations, without having to compromise on user experience or performance. Here are some of the most interesting React Native apps examples, and how they used the framework to deliver an exceptional user experience.
In this post, we will explore a number of apps by top companies including Facebook, Instagram, and others, elaborating on what are the improvements they got to develop faster applications with consistent user experiences on both platforms while saving costs. These examples demonstrate how the framework enables engineered and performant mobile apps at scale.
What is React Native?
React Native is an open-source framework that allows developers to create cross-platform mobile apps with the power of JavaScript and React. One codebase that can be used for both iOS and Android lowers development costs and time. By rendering code directly into native components for both platforms, the framework achieves near-native performance, so companies, from tech giants to startups, are using React Native for building mobile apps as well.
React Native Apps Examples
Facebook was one of the first companies to adopt React Native, so much so that React Native was developed by and for Facebook to ensure its mobile experience is consistent between iOS and Android. By leveraging React Native, Facebook turned to its Ads Manager app to help advertisers manage campaigns with speed. By using React Native, Facebook was able to serve its app with better performance while utilizing only one codebase. As a result, the development time to push updates and ensure feature parity between the two platforms was cut down significantly. Beyond the Ads Manager app, Facebook’s main mobile application also utilizes React Native, which is attributed to improved launch speeds and a better user-end experience. As React Native has grown, it now plays a fundamental role in Facebook’s future mobile development.
In 2016, React Native was adopted by Instagram, one of the top social media platforms internationally. They started off with React Native integration for basics like push notifications. Instagram later broadened this practice to other areas of the app as its framework continued to prove effective. Having over a billion users, Instagram moved to React Native and achieved huge speedups in feature development for both iOS and Android apps, which ultimately translated into better user experiences (and also into cost savings). React Native has reaped Instagram huge benefits, among which is the speed to iterate over new products. Considering the size of Instagram, this is critical; the app needs to keep innovating quickly to serve its enormous user base and stay in touch with trends within the rapidly evolving social media landscape.
Walmart
Walmart, the international retail and wholesale company chain, selected React Native to carry its consumer programs to life with better commerce. Walmart used React Native and redeemed more than 95% of the code usable for both Android as well as iOS, which helped them in release. Having this much code shared also helped Walmart keep the user experience consistent across platforms and significantly reduced the development team’s efforts. The Walmart case shows React Native in strategic use within the retail sector. Among the new features in this version are personalized recommendations, order tracking, and easier integration with Walmart’s physical stores. Its choice to use React Native serves as a testimony to the framework’s ability to manage scale and complexity in association with large apps yet not relinquish the crucial performance of a native experience.
Bloomberg
Bloomberg utilizes React Native to fuel their consumer app, available on the App Store. Designed for finance professionals who require fast, real-time market data as well as news and analysis, the Bloomberg app is very reliable and speedy. Bloomberg launched their app simultaneously on iOS and Android by using React Native to ensure features were compatible across platforms. Bloomberg, like many other large companies, wanted a way to quickly create a reliable mobile experience. If you want to build something in real-time, such as live financial data streams within the app, then you need a high-performance framework, and React Native has once again proved its worth.
Discord
Since its inception, Discord has been employing React Native as the framework of choice for their voice and text communication platform, which is popular among gamers and a number of online communities. Since both the iOS app and Android app are built on the same codebase using React Native, Discord does not have to worry about maintaining separate feature sets for each operating system. It works great! The only failures you experience are as a result of server-type issues. Discord already serves millions of users with the app, and due to React Native, its mobile app has very few crashes and optimal performance. React Native is how Discord ported their iOS app to Android easily, as noted by the Discord engineers. Two days later, the team had successfully rescued their time to market, and users were able to benefit from a seamless experience across devices.
SoundCloud Pulse
SoundCloud Pulse, an app for music creators to manage their accounts, was built using React Native as the company required a quick solution. The team at SoundCloud faced a shortage of iOS developers, so they needed a solution that could support development for both platforms simultaneously. React Native allowed SoundCloud to release the app quickly while maintaining consistent performance across platforms. The team found React Native easy to work with, which enabled them to implement new features and maintain the app efficiently. This was critical for an app like SoundCloud Pulse, where creators rely on quick performance and seamless functionality.
Pinterest, a visual discovery engine, chose React Native to simplify its development process. This helped the company reduce the size of its codebase and facilitated quicker development and release of features. Pinterest was able to push updates for both Android and iOS in just days using React Native, as opposed to weeks using other development methods. This highlights React Native’s capability to boost developer productivity, especially for apps requiring frequent updates to engage large, active user bases.
Uber Eats
Uber Eats developed its restaurant dashboard using React Native, requiring a solution that could seamlessly integrate into the existing Uber Eats platform and leverage native device capabilities. React Native enabled Uber Eats to roll out a performant, cross-platform dashboard for iOS and Android, providing a better experience for restaurant partners. Though Uber Eats only uses React Native for a portion of its platform, the successful implementation demonstrates the framework’s ability to handle demanding apps.
Conclusion
React Native is a groundbreaking framework for mobile app development. Its cross-platform capabilities have made it a popular choice for companies like Facebook, Instagram, and Walmart. Whether delivering real-time data for Bloomberg or managing user interactions for Discord, React Native is powering some of the most popular mobile apps in the world. Companies can save time and costs while still delivering high-quality, native-like user experiences with React Native, making it a proven solution for building scalable mobile apps.
