This weekend I had an idea I set out to experiment with: if I have an existing React Native app, how much effort would it take an LLM to rewrite it into genuinely native apps. My idea being I no longer need to write cross-platform code and pay the intermediary framework costs, I’d get direct access to the underlying platform. Instead, I could just spec the features I need in the app and the LLM can build it.
It took me a year to build the original app to production quality by hand. My “twins”, as they’ve become known, were at 80% completion in three days of on-off work.
I’m pretty much convinced my experiment was a success. Which sorta terrifies me that I’ve specialised in a technology that can be, for all intents and purposes, be entirely erased.
The only caveat I can find is it is still a great technology for doing cross-platform mobile and web. Using something like Tamagui (as rough as that can be sometimes) allows genuine code sharing across all platforms.
Sucks most that I’m now actively looking for a new React Native role.