That really just says it all doesn't it? It's basically an admission that the use of cross-platform frameworks is worse for customers/users, but they're going to ignore that to optimize for their own software engineering org.
> by doing an experiment on Android while maintaining native on iOS
as:
> by throwing their Android users under the bus
It may be a cynical take but it's not an invalid one to take when the thrust of the rest of the paragraph comes down to "the native app's performance is so good, we couldn't dream of changing it".
Probably because that's not what the article says.
Seems like a fantastic experiment IMO.
PS I know it's becoming less and less of an issue these days, but you get my point.
1) Each platform still requires a good amount of special attention.
2) The React Native project introduces breaking changes far more frequently than the underlying platforms
3) Being an abstraction layer, eventually something will break, and you’ll still need someone who understands cryptic linker errors and platform specific quirks.
There are cases where it definitely makes sense, but the hidden costs need to be accounted for.
Based on AirBnB's experience, now you need to find React Native devs in addition to Java devs.
From my experience with RN, you do need to get into the native bits, but most of the development will be not native. So the number of skilled native device engineers required should be less.
So you can’t be a startup/small shop if you want to do this well.
The ones I’ve known personally hated it so much they moved to backend or full stack jobs.
For that reason I thought that there would be way more Android devs. After all, a teenager with a regular computer can start developing Android apps and download the APK in a cheap Android device without paying anything.
On the other hand you mentioned _experienced_ native Android devs, while my thought applies more to junior Android devs, and maybe the two things don't correlate as well as expected.