As we step into 2025, React Native continues to solidify its position as a leading framework for cross-platform mobile app development. Its evolution is marked by significant advancements aimed at enhancing performance, expanding capabilities, and streamlining developer workflows. Let’s explore the key developments and future potential of React Native in 2025.
Integration with Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
AR and VR have seen growing popularity. With libraries like react-viro, developers can integrate ARKit (iOS) or ARCore (Android) more seamlessly into React Native applications.
Building a basic AR scene with react-viro
// App.js
import React from 'react';
import { ViroARSceneNavigator } from 'react-viro';
const InitialARScene = require('./HelloWorldSceneAR');
const App = () => {
return (
<ViroARSceneNavigator
initialScene={{ scene: InitialARScene }}
apiKey="YOUR_API_KEY_HERE"
/>
);
};
export default App;
// HelloWorldSceneAR.js
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { ViroARScene, ViroText } from 'react-viro';
export default class HelloWorldSceneAR extends Component {
render() {
return (
<ViroARScene>
<ViroText
text="Hello AR World!"
position={[0, 0, -1]}
style={{ fontSize: 40, color: '#ffffff' }}
/>
</ViroARScene>
);
}
}This simple “Hello AR World!” example demonstrates how easy it is to drop AR elements into your app using React Native.
Support for Internet of Things (IoT) Devices
React Native’s increased support for IoT devices makes it simpler to connect to BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and other wireless communication protocols. A popular library for BLE communication in React Native is react-native-ble-plx.
Scanning for nearby BLE devices
// IoTScanner.js
import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { Text, FlatList, View } from 'react-native';
import { BleManager } from 'react-native-ble-plx';
const manager = new BleManager();
const IoTScanner = () => {
const [devices, setDevices] = useState([]);
useEffect(() => {
const subscription = manager.startDeviceScan(null, null, (error, device) => {
if (error) {
console.error(error);
return;
}
if (device && !devices.find(d => d.id === device.id)) {
setDevices(prevState => [...prevState, device]);
}
});
// Stop scanning after 10 seconds
setTimeout(() => {
manager.stopDeviceScan();
}, 10000);
return () => {
subscription.remove();
};
}, []);
return (
<View style={{ padding: 20 }}>
<Text>Nearby BLE Devices:</Text>
<FlatList
data={devices}
keyExtractor={(item) => item.id}
renderItem={({ item }) => (
<Text>{`${item.name} [${item.id}]`}</Text>
)}
/>
</View>
);
};
export default IoTScanner;This snippet scans for BLE-enabled devices and displays their IDs and names, illustrating how simple it is to connect React Native apps with IoT devices.
Integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Modern React Native apps frequently incorporate AI/ML features for personalized recommendations, image recognition, or natural language processing. Libraries like TensorFlow.js or PyTorch Live simplify integrating machine learning models.
Real-time image classification with TensorFlow.js
// ImageClassifier.js
import React, { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { View, Text, Image } from 'react-native';
import * as tf from '@tensorflow/tfjs';
import * as tfReact from '@tensorflow/tfjs-react-native';
import * as ImagePicker from 'expo-image-picker';
const ImageClassifier = () => {
const [model, setModel] = useState(null);
const [prediction, setPrediction] = useState('');
useEffect(() => {
(async () => {
await tfReact.ready();
// Load a pre-trained model (MobileNet here as an example)
const loadedModel = await tf.loadGraphModel(
'https://tfhub.dev/tensorflow/tfjs-model/mobilenet_v2_100/1/default/1',
);
setModel(loadedModel);
})();
}, []);
const handlePickImage = async () => {
const result = await ImagePicker.launchImageLibraryAsync();
if (!result.cancelled) {
const imageAssetPath = Image.resolveAssetSource({ uri: result.uri });
const imageTensor = await tfReact.decodeJpegFromPathAsync(
imageAssetPath.uri,
3,
);
// Preprocess and classify
const output = model.execute({ 'input': imageTensor.expandDims() });
// Process output...
setPrediction('Detected Object: ...');
}
};
return (
<View>
<Text onPress={handlePickImage}>
Pick an image to classify
</Text>
{prediction ? <Text>{prediction}</Text> : null}
</View>
);
};
export default ImageClassifier;Here, we load a MobileNet model to classify an image picked from the user’s gallery.
Expansion to Desktop Platforms
React Native has expanded beyond mobile to include support for macOS (react-native-macos) and Windows (react-native-windows). This means you can maintain a single codebase that spans mobile, web, and desktop.
Setting up React Native for Windows
# Install React Native for Windows
npx react-native-windows-init --version latest --overwrite
jsx
// App.js (shared codebase)
import React from 'react';
import { Text, View } from 'react-native';
const App = () => {
return (
<View style={{ flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' }}>
<Text>React Native on Windows!</Text>
</View>
);
};
export default App;With a single codebase, you can deploy your React Native app to Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS, reducing development overhead significantly.
Focus on Sustainability
React Native’s optimizations around lower power consumption and faster load times directly impact device battery life and app responsiveness. Though there isn’t a direct code snippet for “sustainability,” best practices like memoization, lazy-loading, and carefully managing re-renders lead to improved power efficiency.
Using React.memo to avoid unnecessary re-renders
import React from 'react';
import { Text } from 'react-native';
const ExpensiveComponent = React.memo(({ data }) => {
// Complex logic or large rendering here
return <Text>{data}</Text>;
});
export default ExpensiveComponent;By wrapping components with React.memo, you can prevent re-renders when props haven’t changed, which helps save CPU cycles and consequently battery power.
Improved Developer Tools and Ecosystem Growth
Modern tools like Flipper provide debugging, performance monitoring, and error tracking all in one place, making development and iteration much faster.
Using Flipper for debugging
// React Native code doesn't change much.
// Just enable debugging in Flipper by following official documentation:
// In your AppDelegate.m (iOS) or MainApplication.java (Android),
// integrate the Flipper client. Then, you can debug network requests,
// logs, and more in the Flipper app.
// Sample usage in a component:
import React from 'react';
import { Button } from 'react-native';
const DebugButton = () => {
const handlePress = () => {
console.log('Debug Button Pressed!');
};
return <Button title="Press me" onPress={handlePress} />;
};
export default DebugButton;With Flipper, you can view logs, inspect network requests, and profile performance from a user-friendly desktop interface.
Adoption of Concurrent Mode for Enhanced Responsiveness
Concurrent Mode (or the more modern React 18 concurrent features) helps React Native stay responsive by allowing the app to interrupt, pause, or resume rendering. In React 18, this is typically achieved with features like useTransition.
Using Concurrent Mode with useTransition
import React, { useState, useTransition } from 'react';
import { View, Text, Button, FlatList } from 'react-native';
const BigList = () => {
const [query, setQuery] = useState('');
const [list, setList] = useState([]);
const [isPending, startTransition] = useTransition();
const handleGenerateList = () => {
startTransition(() => {
// Simulate an expensive data generation
const newList = Array.from({ length: 10000 }, (_, idx) => `Item ${idx}`);
setList(newList);
});
};
return (
<View style={{ flex: 1, justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center' }}>
<Button title="Generate Big List" onPress={handleGenerateList} />
{isPending && <Text>Loading...</Text>}
<FlatList
data={list}
keyExtractor={(item, index) => index.toString()}
renderItem={({ item }) => <Text>{item}</Text>}
/>
</View>
);
};
export default BigList;By using useTransition, React can defer the rendering of a large list to maintain UI responsiveness, enhancing the user experience.
Cost-Effectiveness and Market Reach
React Native’s single codebase approach for both iOS and Android continues to save development costs, reduce resource needs, and streamline deployment. Even more so now that React Native also targets Windows and macOS. Although code snippets aren’t entirely necessary here (it’s more about project setup), the principle remains straightforward: write once, run on multiple platforms.
Future Outlook
Looking ahead, React Native’s roadmap includes further performance optimizations, improved state management solutions (like Recoil, Zustand, Jotai, etc.), and advanced gestures/animations (via Reanimated, Gesture Handler). These improvements ensure that
React Native remains a top choice for fast, flexible, and sustainable cross-platform app development.
Conclusion
In 2025, React Native stands as a powerful and versatile framework that continues to evolve with the demands of modern app development. These code snippets showcase just a fraction of the possibilities, from native integrations and AR/VR experiences to IoT and AI/ML capabilities. The community-driven ecosystem ensures that developers have the tools and resources to create high-quality, efficient applications for multiple platforms—an advantage that remains crucial in our fast-paced, tech-driven world.
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