Mobile Apps Development Like It's 2019

Native vs. Hybrid

Diana Miron

front-end developer, 6y exp

iOS dev, UI/UX designer

BucharestJS, JSgirls, JSHacks

JSLeague founder

Whoami

JSLeague

JSLeague is an intensive program with workshops & coding on real projects, designed for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead.

We cover all JS tech stack. Angular, ReactJS, Vue.js, Node.js, we have it all!

About

Context

Native

own SDK

Hybrid

web based

Context

Somewhere in between

write JS code, build native

iOS

Objective C, Swift

Xcode

Cocoa Touch, CocoaPods

iOS

Build & Run

iOS

Deployment:

Dev Account $99 + Certificates + iTunes Store

Android

Java for Android, Kotlin

Android Studio

JDK, Gradle

Android

Deployment:

Dev Account $25 + App signing + PlayStore

Hybrid

HTML, CSS and JavaScript

Native shell: Cordova, Ionic

1 code base

Access to all the native device features like touchId, media etc. but dependent on native plugins

Dependent on different libraries - up to date + compatibility issues

Platform specific bugs

Performance issues - JS is slow

3D, HD games, high graphics-oriented apps are a NO NO

Ionic 2 + Angular

Setup: https://ionicframework.com/docs/intro/installation/

Components: https://ionicframework.com/docs/components/#overview

Ionic 2 + Angular

Versions

ionic 1 + AngularJS (1)

ionic 2 + Angular (>2)

ionic 4 Beta: https://beta.ionicframework.com/docs/

Ionic 2 + Angular

Previous knowledge of:

JS, ES6, Typescript, Angular

Ionic 2 + Angular

Example time!

React Native

With React Native, you don’t build a “mobile web app”, an “HTML5 app”, or a “hybrid app”. You build a real mobile app that’s indistinguishable from an app built using Objective-C or Java.

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

React Native

React Native

Architecture

2 threads:

1st - responsible for displaying the UI and handling user gestures.

2nd - specific to RN, executes the JS code in a separate JS engine.

React Native

React vs. React Native

Different UI

components

Similar CSS

rules

Same data layer (Redux)

React Native Components

React

class ExampleWebComponent extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="w100">
        <div className="menuTitleWrap">
          <img src={this.props.url} className="shadowImage" alt="" />
        </div>
        <p>{this.props.title}</p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

class ExampleRNComponent extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <View style={styles.w100}>
        <View style={styles.menuTitleWrap}>
          <Image
            source={this.props.url}
            style={styles.shadowImage}
          />
        </View>
        <Text>{this.props.title}</Text>
      </View>
    );
  }
}

React

Native

React Native Style

React

.w100 {
  width: 100%;
  background-color: "white";
  flex: 1;
}

export default StyleSheet.create({
  w100: {
    width: '100%',
    backgroundColor: 'white',
    flex: 1,
  },
});

React

Native

All properties must be written in camel case (instead of using dashes)

No cascading, meaning the styling from a parent component is not applied to its children

No mixins, limited functionality, flexbox

The components don’t care how they are getting their props, so you can keep using Redux or Mobx as before.

React Native Data

React Native Setup

1. Create React Native App

$ create-react-native-app AwesomeProject

2. Build projects with native code

$ react-native init AwesomeProject
$ react-native run-ios

3. Run App: simulator or device

React Native Dependencies

UI/UX

Navigation

Camera, video, face recognition, scanner

Video player

Blob fetch

Offline mode

Push notifications

React Native UI/UX

UI Components and Styling

https://nativebase.io/

React Native Routing and Navigation

react-navigation – created by the community;
react-native-navigation – authored by Wix;
react-native-router-flux – this one is based on react-navigation

React Native Others

React-native-camera (photos, videos, face recognition, scanner)
React-native-camera-roll-picker (gallery)
React-native-video & react-native-video-player 
React-native-fetch-blob
Offline Mode - Redux & Redux Persist
Push Notifications - OneSignal

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues

React Native Issues

Buggy libraries

RN v0.57

Limited styling

Libraries link in native IDEs

Conclusions

Things to consider when choosing native vs. hybrid

UI/UX flexibility

Performance

Capabilities

Security

Time vs. Costs

Maintenance

Debugging

https://blog.jscrambler.com/10-frameworks-for-mobile-hybrid-apps/

https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

https://www.nativescript.org/

https://developer.apple.com/videos/developer-tools/

https://medium.com/we-talk-it/react-native-what-it-is-and-how-it-works-e2182d008f5e

https://www.appticles.com/blog/2018/05/building-ios-and-android-apps-with-react-native/

https://medium.com/dailyjs/comparison-of-state-management-solutions-for-react-2161a0b4af7b

https://jscrambler.com/

Resources

Thank you!

diana@jsleague.ro

Mobile Apps Dev 2019

By Diana Gabriela Miron

Mobile Apps Development Like It's 2019

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