Feb 20 2026: Issue 13

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🎊 React Native 0.84 is Out!
Hermes V1 is now the default engine on both iOS and Android, delivering faster execution and lower memory usage with no migration needed. iOS builds get a major boost with precompiled React Native binaries enabled by default, cutting clean build times significantly. This version also continues the cleanup of the Legacy Architecture, raises the minimum Node.js requirement to 22, and ships React 19.2.3 plus modern tooling upgrades like ESLint v9 Flat Config.

🎊 Expo 55 Beta is now Available!
Expo SDK 55 Beta is here, bringing React Native 0.83.1 and React 19.2.0 along with a major set of forward-looking upgrades. This release officially drops support for the Legacy Architecture, introduces a revamped default project template with a new /src structure and native tabs, and adds opt-in support for Hermes v1 for early performance gains. SDK 55 also delivers Hermes bytecode diffing for dramatically smaller OTA updates, expanded AI tooling through Expo skills and MCP integration, and a wave of new native capabilities in Expo Router. With improvements to brownfield integrations, Expo UI, and more platform features across the SDK, Expo 55 is shaping up as a big step toward the next generation of Expo development.

BridgeJS is Live!
The 0.44.0 release introduces the BridgeJS MVP, a new interoper- ability layer for Swift↔JavaScript/TypeScript in WebAssembly apps. BridgeJS lets you generate type-safe glue code in both directions: exporting Swift APIs to JS and importing JS APIs into Swift, using Swift macros or TypeScript definitions. It replaces the older dynamic API with compile-time safety, better performance, and less boilerplate.

Flutter 3.4.1 just got Released!
Google is introducing public release windows for clearer upgrade planning, while continuing to decouple Material and Cupertino into independent packages for faster design evolution. This version strengthens ecosystem alignment with Swift Package Manager support, adds platform-specific asset bundling to reduce app size, and delivers GPU upgrades like synchronous image decoding and high-bitrate textures for advanced shaders. Developers also get smoother Add-to-App with content-sized Flutter views, improved navigation APIs, accessibility upgrades, and faster DevTools compiled with dart2wasm.

react-native-quick-crypto v1.0.12: Major Crypto Expansion for React Native
Margelo’s react-native-quick-crypto just shipped v1.0.12, marking a major milestone with full Node.js Crypto API compatibility for React Native. This release expands the subtle crypto layer with SHA-3, cSHAKE, and KMAC128/KMAC256 support, while introducing powerful post-quantum primitives like ML-KEM encapsulation/decapsulation and ML-DSA import/export. It also adds a complete X509Certificate class and delivers critical fixes across key handling, PBKDF2 validation, cipher safety, and ArrayBuffer reliability, making Quick Crypto an increasingly production-ready foundation for secure apps.

react-native-gesture-handler v3.0.0: Gesture Handling Enters the Next Era
Software Mansion’s react-native-gesture-handler just shipped v3.0.0-beta.2 with important updates as the library moves toward RNGH 3. This release removes the old PureNativeButton export, introduces a new createNativeWrapper, and delivers a solid batch of native fixes across Android and the gesture detector system. With improved detector behavior, better support for transparent views, and cleaner internal layout logic, this beta is a strong step forward for more reliable, modern gesture handling in React Native apps.

agent-skills: Callstack’s Installable Playbooks for AI Coding Assistants
Callstack’s Agent Skills is a new open collection of structured, agent-optimized workflows for AI coding assistants. It packages expert React Native knowledge into reusable skills like performance best practices, GitHub PR patterns, and a dedicated upgrading-react-native playbook to avoid common upgrade pitfalls. These skills plug directly into tools like Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, and Gemini, giving developers consistent, actionable guidance inside their daily coding flow. It’s essentially “battle-tested engineering rules” you can install and run with your AI pair programmer.

expo-openclaw-chat: A Minimal Chat SDK for Expo Apps
expo-openclaw-chat is a lightweight, plug-and-play chat SDK that lets Expo apps connect directly to an OpenClaw WebSocket gateway with just a few lines of code. It provides a ready-to-use modal chat UI, flexible authentication options, and strong device identity support via Ed25519 keys stored securely with expo-secure-store and MMKV. With optional add-ons like image attachments and Markdown rendering, it’s a clean foundation for embedding secure, modern chat experiences into React Native projects.

facetpack: The Modern React Native Toolkit
Facetpack is a new drop-in upgrade for React Native bundling that replaces Babel transforms with Rust-powered OXC, delivering dramatically faster builds and a smoother developer experience. It promises up to 36× faster transforms, clearer error messages, and a smart fallback for legacy Flow-based packages. With a one-line Metro integration and a built-in Doctor CLI to diagnose common issues, Facetpack is shaping up as a serious next-gen toolkit for Expo and React Native teams focused on speed and reliability.

react-native-enriched-markdown v0.2.1: Small Release, Solid Polish
Software Mansion Labs’ react-native-enriched-markdown just shipped v0.2.1 as a focused follow-up update to the major 0.2.0 release. This version adds a new “Future Plans” section to the documentation, improves Android support with ProGuard consumer rules, and includes general release housekeeping. A lightweight but important step toward making enriched Markdown rendering even more stable and production-ready across platforms

Expo Updates: Quality is a Function of Iteration
Expo Updates supercharge mobile development by removing the slowest part of QA: waiting on full builds for every small change. With instant over-the-air previews, teams can share pull request updates as simple links, test fixes in seconds, and iterate on UI and JavaScript changes without redistributing binaries. It’s the modern successor to CodePush, built for faster feedback loops, smoother production patches, and a dramatically higher shipping velocity.

How Vercel Built the v0 iOS App with React Native + Expo
Vercel’s v0 iOS app is a standout example of how far React Native has evolved for truly native-feeling experiences. After dozens of iterations, the team chose React Native with Expo and built a composable, high-performance chat system powered by Reanimated, LegendList, and advanced keyboard handling. They pushed platform polish to the limit with Liquid Glass UI, synchronous layout measurement from the New Architecture, native patches for TextInput and modals, and a shared OpenAPI-driven backend layer for type-safe code reuse. The result is a mobile app that speaks the iPhone’s language while staying firmly in the modern React Native ecosystem.

Large Header Titles in Expo Router (iOS Done Right)
Aman Mittal breaks down how to bring Apple’s signature large collapsing navigation titles to React Native using Expo Router. The key is enabling headerLargeTitle with a transparent header, then making sure your ScrollView or FlatList uses contentInsetAdjustmentBehavior="automatic" for proper layout. The post also highlights an important iOS nuance: iOS 18 requires an explicit headerBlurEffect, while iOS 26 applies blur automatically, so conditional platform and version checks are needed for a polished, native result across devices.

Deep Links + Authentication in React Navigation (Finally Solved)
Callstack highlights one of the trickiest mobile UX edge cases: handling deep links when users aren’t logged in yet. Traditionally, developers had to rely on awkward workarounds like remounting navigation containers or manually replaying deep link actions after login. React Navigation 7 introduces a cleaner built-in solution with UNSTABLE_routeNamesChangeBehavior: 'lastUnhandled', allowing unhandled deep links to automatically retry once authentication state changes. It’s a big step toward seamless, native-grade login-to-destination flows with far less custom code.

Building High-Quality UIs with Expo, NativeWind, and Reanimated
In this Expo guest post, Thomino shares a modern workflow for designing polished React Native apps directly in code, skipping Figma entirely. By combining Expo Go live preview with NativeWind for reusable, themeable components and Reanimated for smooth interactions, you can build production-ready design systems faster. The article covers flexible headers, animated tab navigation, multi-step onboarding flows, CSS-variable theming, and an elegant dark mode toggle, showing how Expo + NativeWind make high-end UI development feel effortless.

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