React Native 0.85.2 + React 19.2.3

Hermes V1 enabled by default

Expo UI is now production ready (SwiftUI + Jetpack Compose)

Universal UI components added (Row, Column, Button, BottomSheet, etc.)

Expo Router no longer depends on React Navigation

Massive expo-modules-core performance improvements

Inline Expo Modules introduced

Faster iOS builds with precompiled XCFrameworks

Major Expo CLI speed improvements

Stable object-oriented APIs for:

Widgets for iOS are now stable

Better brownfield/native app embedding support

New AI-focused tooling for Claude/Cursor/Codex

Minimum iOS bumped to 16.4

Node.js < 20.19.4 dropped

@expo/vector-icons deprecated

expo/fetch replaces global fetch

expo-router migration changes for React Navigation users

New declarative Stack API for native headers, search bars, and navigation UI

Native Tabs support with Material 3 dynamic colors

New Toolbar API with native iOS toolbar + liquid glass effects

Apple-style zoom transitions for shared element navigation

New Color API for platform-native dynamic colors

expo-server introduced for server APIs and deployment adapters

Experimental SSR support for Expo apps and server-side data loaders with useLoaderData

Custom server headers support added

Experimental iPad Split View support

Stronger web support with:

More native-first routing and navigation architecture

Major push toward “write once” for native + web

AI-powered visual editor for 3D experiences

Deploy to iPhone, Android, and Meta Quest from one codebase

No Unity or native VR tooling required

Browser-based editor with instant React Native integration

Expo compatible

Quest 2, 3, and Pro support

Trusted by 100K+ installs

📦 Reactotron Core Server 3.3.0 adds MCP server support for Claude Code integration, making it easier to connect Reactotron workflows with AI-assisted development tooling. This opens the door for deeper debugging and automation experiences directly inside modern coding agents.

📦 Agent Device v0.14.0 continues pushing AI-powered mobile automation forward with new workflow and CLI improvements designed for coding agents and automated QA flows. The project focuses on giving AI agents deeper control over iOS and Android apps through accessibility snapshots, device actions, debugging tools, and replayable automation scripts. ()

📦 react-native-nitro-markdown v0.6.0 replaces the previous MathJax/SVG rendering pipeline with RaTeX for significantly faster and simpler native math rendering. The release also improves Expo iOS build compatibility, hardens native session memory limits across platforms, and refreshes benchmarks and example performance comparisons.

📦 react-native-nitro-fetch v1.2.0 introduces native prefetch support, enabling faster request preparation and improved networking performance for React Native apps. The release also fixes Android CookieManager synchronization issues with Cronet and token refresh flows, while adding a new web stub for improved cross-platform compatibility.

📦 react-native-enriched v0.7.0 introduces the new EnrichedText component for HTML rendering alongside experimental web support for rich text editing. The release also brings major improvements across iOS, Android, and Web, including better list handling, code blocks, links, screenshot pasting, formatting fixes, and a new unified EnrichedInputStyle API.

📦 react-native-nitro-geolocation adds new AI-powered migration skills and codemods for moving from both @react-native-community/geolocation and react-native-geolocation-service to the modern Nitro API. The update introduces dedicated migration playbooks, safer automated transforms, improved documentation, and direct Modern API migration flows with support for provider configuration, permissions, watches, and Android location settings.

📦 react-native-quick-crypto v1.1.3 focuses on low-level performance optimizations across string decoding and ArrayBuffer handling. The release introduces faster Latin1 decoding paths, reduces unnecessary memory copies, and improves JSI string creation performance for better overall crypto throughput in React Native apps.

📦 react-native-graph reboot was a massive refactor touching 150 files with a full upgrade of the rendering and infrastructure stack. The release modernizes the library around newer Skia APIs and lays the foundation for future performance and animation improvements across React Native charting.

📦 MapLibre React Native v11 is a major milestone release that fully drops support for the old React Native architecture and migrates the library entirely to the New Architecture. The update introduces large API improvements inspired by MapLibre GL JS, extensive component renames and modernization, upgraded native SDKs, Reanimated v4 compatibility, and major refactors across maps, layers, annotations, offline support, and location APIs.

📦 react-native-enriched v0.7.0 Software Mansion released a major update for react-native-enriched, introducing the new EnrichedText component for HTML rendering alongside experimental web support. The release also improves rich text editing across iOS, Android, and Web with better list handling, code blocks, link support, formatting fixes, and a new unified EnrichedInputStyle API.

📦 🤯 Reactiive Demos is an impressive open-source collection of advanced React Native animations built with Reanimated, Gesture Handler, Skia, and now experimental WebGPU + Nitro integrations. The project showcases high-end animation techniques, shader experiments, and interactive UI demos while also serving as a learning playground for modern React Native graphics and rendering APIs.

📦 🤯 android-reverse-engineering-skill brings AI-assisted APK reverse engineering directly into Claude Code with automated decompilation, API extraction, call-flow tracing, and obfuscation analysis workflows. The project supports tools like jadx, Fernflower, Vineflower, and dex2jar while helping security researchers and mobile engineers quickly analyze Android apps, network layers, and authentication flows without source access.

📖 QR and Barcode Scanning in React Native with VisionCamera V5 Margelo published a comprehensive deep dive into QR and barcode scanning with VisionCamera V5, covering MLKit-based scanning, frame processors, overlays, and the new iOS-native CameraObjectOutput. The article walks through production-ready setups, performance tuning, coordinate systems, and advanced scanning workflows across iOS and Android using the new VisionCamera V5 architecture.

🤯 How Margelo Helped Discord Improve React Native's New Architecture Performance Margelo published a fascinating deep dive into the React Native New Architecture performance bottlenecks Discord encountered during their Android migration. The article explores Reanimated internals, Fabric Shadow Trees, commit hooks, and synchronous UI updates, showing how animation registry cleanup and rendering optimizations reduced janky frames by 26% on Discord’s app.

📖 Improved Debugging for Expo Apps with the React Native SDK — Sentry published a major update focused on improving debugging and performance monitoring for Expo apps with React Native. The release adds automatic OTA update context, emergency launch detection, EAS Build hooks, Expo Router prefetch spans, and asset-loading instrumentation to give teams significantly better visibility into production Expo deployments and update pipelines.

📖 Part 1: How to Make Pure JSI Code Faster in React Native Margelo published a deep dive into low-level JSI performance optimization, covering HostFunction vs HostObject, NativeState, stack allocation, string handling, and reducing JS ↔ C++ boundary crossings. Backed by Hermes benchmarks, the article shows how seemingly small architectural decisions can make pure JSI modules up to 5–10x faster on hot paths.

📖 Part 2: Making JSI Faster with more Efficient Data Structures The second part of Margelo’s JSI performance series explores how data shape and API design dramatically affect native module performance in React Native. Using real-world benchmarks, the article compares arrays of objects vs ArrayBuffers, strings vs numeric contracts, and high-level vs low-level string construction techniques, demonstrating optimizations reaching up to 30x speedups.

📚 Best Claude Skills for Mobile Development - Code with Beto shared his favorite Claude Code skills that helped ship apps like Inkigo and Platano faster. The article covers ASO auditing, Apple Search Ads optimization, App Store preflight checks, AI-powered app icon generation, and UI-focused Claude Skills. One standout tool, ASO Audit, analyzes real App Store data to identify keyword gaps, ranking issues, metadata problems, and competitor differences. Beto says these workflows helped accelerate shipping and scale apps already generating revenue on the App Store.