JavaScript Everywhere

Chapter 21. Mobile Applications with React Native

One day in the late 1980s I was shopping with my parents when I spotted a small portable television. It was a battery-powered square box, with an antenna, small speaker, and a tiny black-and-white screen. I was blown away by the possibility of watching Saturday morning cartoons in my backyard. Though I’d never own one, just knowing that such a device existed made me feel like I was living in a science-fiction future world. Little did I know that as an adult, I’d carry a device in my pocket that would allow me to not only watch Masters of the Universe, but also to access infinite information, listen to music, play games, take notes, take photos, summon a car, buy things, check the weather, and complete an infinite number of other tasks.

In 2007 Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, saying “every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” Sure, smartphones existed before 2007, but it wasn’t until the rise of the iPhone (and subsequent rise of Android) that they were truly smart. In the intervening years, smartphone applications have evolved past the initial “anything goes” gold rush phase to be something that users demand quality from and have high expectations for. Today’s applications have high standards of functionality, interaction, and design. To add to the challenge, modern mobile application development is splintered across the Apple iOS and Android platforms, each using a different programming ...