I’ve been working on a new app called Intake, an AI nutrition companion that goes beyond calorie counting. You can log meals (photo or text), track body composition via photos, record mood, and see your progress over time.
I’ve been a diehard Swift fan, so I’ll admit I had pretty low expectations going in. My memory of React Native was from years ago when it felt sluggish and “uncanny valley” compared to native apps. But I’ve been genuinely surprised at how far it’s come (Expo is great too):
- Performance: UI feels smooth, gestures and animations feel indistinguishable from Swift (with one or two exceptions).
- Native APIs: HealthKit, camera, photo processing, all integrated without much pain.
- Iteration speed: feature velocity is noticeably faster than with pure Swift.
There were still some rough edges (i.e navigation complexity), but overall RN in 2025 finally feels like it delivers on the “write once, run native” promise.
For those who tried RN years ago and bounced off: have you given it another shot recently?
Would also love to hear broader thoughts on the current state of cross-platform frameworks.