Introduction

Building a mobile app traditionally meant two teams, two languages, two codebases: Swift for iOS (the Swift post) and Kotlin for Android (the Kotlin post). React Native, created at Meta, offers a different deal: write the app once in JavaScript and React, and ship it to both stores. It is not a web page in a wrapper — it renders genuinely native interface elements, which is why apps built with it feel like real apps.

Components, not web tags

If you know React (the React post), React Native feels familiar — same component model, same state, same hooks — but the building blocks are mobile primitives instead of web tags:

import { View , Text , TouchableOpacity } from " react-native " ; function WelcomeScreen () { return ( < View > < Text > Welcome back, Sara </ Text > < TouchableOpacity onPress = { () => console .…